What this tool does
The PDF text extractor pulls the text layer of a PDF into plain text, page by page: reading order and line breaks are preserved, with optional page markers for downstream search, quoting or AI processing.
It targets text-based PDFs (reports, papers, contracts). Scan-only PDFs have no text layer and are told apart explicitly with an OCR hint. Everything runs in your browser; the file is never uploaded.
How to use
- Drop your .pdf file Up to 100MB. Password-protected files are rejected outright.
- Choose page markers Markers like "--- Page 3 ---" help with citing; turn off for continuous text.
- Download the TXT Extraction follows the content-stream painting order, which matches reading order for most single-column documents.
FAQ
Can scanned PDFs be extracted?
No. Scans are images without a text layer; the tool says so and points to OCR.
What about password-protected PDFs?
Rejected outright — this tool never cracks passwords.
Will two-column papers come out in order?
Mostly yes (left column painted first); interleaved streams blend — inherent to the format.
Is my file uploaded?
No. Parsing and extraction happen entirely in your browser.
Is table structure preserved?
No. Tables flatten to line-by-line text with spaces between cells.
Are Chinese PDFs supported?
Yes. Chinese in the text layer exports as UTF-8 unchanged.
Limits
Up to 100MB per file; text-layer PDFs only.
No OCR, no table or column reflow, no images or font metadata.
Encrypted PDFs are rejected, never cracked.