PandaFileKit

PDF to text

Pull the text layer out of a PDF into a plain text file.

PDF → TXT

Sent to server: 0 B

Requests made by this tool while processing · how to verify
Requests that could carry data
0
Engine downloads (code, models)
0
Analytics pings (no file data)
0

Counted with the browser's Performance API during the last job. It sees every request the page makes, but not what is inside them, so anything that is not a static download is counted above.

To check yourself: open DevTools → Network, clear the list, run the tool, and inspect each request. None will contain your file. You can also switch to offline after the page loads; tools whose engine is already downloaded keep working.

Drop PDF here

or paste, or choose a file

PDF → TXT

Choose one document. Scanned image-only files may not contain selectable text.

Copy the text out of a PDF in one go

Selecting text in a PDF viewer is fiddly across many pages. PDF to Text pulls out the text layer of every page into a plain TXT file you can search, paste into an email or document, feed into a translation tool, or quote from.

  • Copying the text of a notice, circular or policy into an email or document.
  • Getting a searchable text version of a long report.
  • Pasting content into a translator or summarising tool.

Text only, page by page

Each page's text is written under a "--- Page N ---" marker so you can find where things came from. Words are joined in the order the PDF stores them, which usually follows reading order in simple documents.

  • Scanned pages have no text layer; convert them with PDF to JPG and run Image to Text (OCR).

Layout isn't preserved

Line breaks, columns and tables are flattened into running text, so multi-column layouts can interleave and table cells run together. Some PDFs made with unusual fonts produce garbled characters because the file doesn't map glyphs to real letters; that can't be fixed from the text layer, and OCR is the fallback.

  • If a page shows up empty, it is almost certainly a scan.
  • Check numbers and names copied from tables before relying on them.

PDF to text: questions

Why is the output empty for my PDF?

The PDF is almost certainly a scan: it contains pictures of pages, not text. Convert the pages with PDF to JPG and read them with Image to Text (OCR).

Does it keep the layout and tables?

No. Text comes out as running lines per page. Columns can interleave and table cells run together, so check tables by hand.

Why are some characters garbled?

Some PDFs use fonts that don't record which letter each shape represents. The text layer itself is broken, so OCR on a page image is the only reliable fix.

How are pages separated in the TXT file?

Each page starts with a line like "--- Page 3 ---" so you can find where text came from.

Is the PDF uploaded to extract the text?

No. The text is read in your browser from the file on your device.