How to Extract Text From a PDF
Retyping a passage from a PDF is a waste of time when the words are already in the file. Extract text pulls them out as plain text you can copy, translate or paste elsewhere.
How text extraction works
Most PDFs carry a text layer: the real characters that make the document selectable and searchable. Extraction reads that layer directly, in your browser.
When you need OCR first
A scan is only a picture of a page, with no text layer, so there is nothing to extract. Run it through Make PDF searchable first: it reads the text in the picture and adds it to the file. Then extract the text.
How to extract text from a PDF
- Open Extract text and drop in your PDF.
- Click Extract text.
- Copy it all, or download it as a .txt file.
What about formatting?
You get plain text: columns, tables and font styles are not kept, and page breaks become blank lines. To keep the layout, convert the PDF to Word instead.
Do it now: Extract Text