How to use it
- Choose the PDF. Its page count appears under the name.
- Leave Pages empty for all the text, or type pages such as 1-3, 8 for part of it.
- Click Extract text. The words appear in the box, each page under its own heading.
- Click Copy to paste the text elsewhere, or Download to save it as a .txt file.
How the text is read
The text is read from the characters stored in the PDF, in the order the file lists them, and the lines are joined where the file ends a line. Text in tables and on pages with several columns can come out in a different order from the page, and a word broken with a hyphen at the end of a line is not joined again. Some fonts store no readable characters, and those come out as odd symbols.
Scanned pages
A scanned PDF is a picture of each page and holds no text, so there is nothing to read here. This tool detects that and says so. To read a scanned PDF, use PDF OCR, which reads its pages with OCR in your browser.
Your file stays on your device
The PDF is read in your browser with the open-source pdf.js library. The text is never sent anywhere, and nothing is stored: the text box is empty again when you leave the page.
Example: a 3-page letter
A 3-page letter gives text that starts with --- Page 1 --- and the first page's words, then --- Page 2 --- and the second page, and so on.
Type 2-3 in Pages to get only the second and third page, each under its own heading.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my text have strange characters or missing spaces?
The text is read as the PDF stores it. Some files store text with unusual font encodings or without spaces between the words, and a reader cannot repair that. Copying from a PDF reader can give a cleaner result for those files.
Why is the text in the wrong order?
A PDF stores text in the order it was drawn, not in reading order. A page with columns, tables or text boxes can come out in another order. Copy the paragraph you need from the box, and check it against the page.
Can I read the text of a scanned PDF?
Not with this tool, which reads only the text a PDF already holds. A scanned PDF is made of pictures, so use PDF OCR, which reads each page with OCR in your browser.
Does the tool keep my text after I close the page?
No. The text exists only on the page while it is open. Nothing is stored in your browser or sent to our server.
Sources
Figures and text last checked on Tuesday, November 10, 2026.