# Extract Text from PDF

Pull all selectable text from any PDF. Copy it to your clipboard or download as a plain text file. Runs entirely in your browser — no uploads required.

Live page: [https://freetoolsfr.com/extract-text-from-pdf](https://freetoolsfr.com/extract-text-from-pdf)

Extracting text from a PDF should be simple, but most online tools either limit you to a few pages, add watermarks, or upload your file to a server. This tool does none of that. It uses pdfjs-dist — the same rendering engine that powers Firefox's built-in PDF viewer — to read every page of your PDF and extract all selectable text. The result is organized by page number and presented in a scrollable view where you can copy everything to your clipboard with one click or download as a plain .txt file. The entire process runs in your browser. Your PDF file never leaves your device, never touches a server, and is discarded when you close the tab.

## How it works

1. **Upload Your PDF** — Select or drag and drop the PDF file you want to extract content from.
2. **Choose Text or Images** — Switch between Extract Text and Extract Images mode depending on what you need.
3. **Copy or Download** — Copy text to clipboard, download as .txt, or save extracted images as PNG files.

## Use cases

- **Research & Citation**: Extract text from academic papers and textbooks to quote in essays and research documents.
- **Data Entry**: Pull text from PDF reports, invoices, and contracts to paste into spreadsheets or databases.
- **Content Migration**: Extract text from old PDF documents to migrate content to a CMS, website, or new document format.

## Tips

- **Check for Selectable Text First**: Try selecting text in your PDF viewer. If you can highlight text, this tool will extract it. If not, the PDF contains scanned images and needs OCR.
- **Use Page Separators**: The downloaded .txt file includes '--- Page X ---' separators so you can find content from specific pages.
- **Large PDFs Work Fine**: The tool processes page by page with a progress indicator. Even 100+ page PDFs work — just give it a moment.

## FAQ

### Why does the tool return empty text?

The PDF likely contains scanned images instead of selectable text. This tool extracts text layer content only — it does not perform OCR on images.

### Is the formatting preserved?

The tool extracts raw text content. Basic word order and spacing are preserved, but formatting like bold, fonts, and columns may not be perfectly replicated.

### Do my files get uploaded?

No. Everything runs locally in your browser. Your PDF file never leaves your device.

## Problems solved

- Extract text from PDFs without installing software
- Copy PDF content to clipboard for pasting into other documents
- Download PDF text as a .txt file for processing
- Process documents privately without uploading to servers

## Stats

- **0 bytes** Uploaded to Servers
- **Page-by-page** Extraction Method
- **< 5 sec** Average Processing
- **Unlimited** Pages Supported

## Tool

This page is powered by the [pdf-extract](https://freetoolsfr.com/pdf/extract) tool.

## Related

- [extract-images-from-pdf](https://freetoolsfr.com/extract-images-from-pdf)
- [pdf-text-extractor](https://freetoolsfr.com/pdf-text-extractor)
- [copy-text-from-pdf](https://freetoolsfr.com/copy-text-from-pdf)
- [pdf-to-text-free](https://freetoolsfr.com/pdf-to-text-free)

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Source: https://freetoolsfr.com/extract-text-from-pdf
Site: https://freetoolsfr.com