PDF files are excellent for preserving document formatting, but that preservation comes with a trade-off: getting the text out of a PDF is not always straightforward. You cannot simply click inside a PDF and start editing the way you would in a Word document. When you need the raw text from a PDF for research notes, data entry, content repurposing, or any other purpose, you need a reliable extraction method.
This guide walks you through how to extract text from PDF files quickly and accurately using free online tools, explains the different types of PDFs you might encounter, and shares practical tips for getting the best results from your text extraction.
Why Extract Text from a PDF?
There are many situations where pulling text out of a PDF is the most practical approach:
- Research and note-taking. Academic researchers, students, and journalists often need to pull quotes, data points, and key passages from PDF papers, reports, and articles. Extracting the full text lets you search, highlight, and organize information in your own notes or reference manager.
- Data entry and processing. Business documents like invoices, purchase orders, and inventory lists often arrive as PDFs. Extracting the text allows you to copy the data into spreadsheets, databases, or accounting software without retyping everything manually.
- Content repurposing. Writers, marketers, and content creators sometimes need to rework existing PDF content into new formats like blog posts, social media content, or email newsletters. Extracting the text is the first step in that transformation.
- Accessibility. Converting a PDF to plain text makes the content more accessible to screen readers and other assistive technologies. Plain text is universally readable and can be reformatted for any device or accessibility need.
- Archiving and indexing. Organizations that archive documents often need searchable plain-text versions alongside the formatted PDFs. Extracted text can be indexed by search systems, making it possible to find specific information across thousands of documents.
- Translation. When you need to translate a PDF document, extracting the text first gives you clean content to paste into translation tools or send to translators, without the formatting complications that come with editing a PDF directly.
Types of PDFs and How They Affect Text Extraction
Not all PDFs are created equal, and the type of PDF you are working with significantly affects how easily text can be extracted:
Native (Digital) PDFs
These are PDFs created directly from digital sources: exported from Word, generated by a web application, or saved from a design program. Native PDFs contain actual text data embedded in the file, which means extraction tools can pull out the text with high accuracy. This is the best-case scenario for text extraction.
Scanned PDFs (Image-Based)
When you scan a paper document, the result is essentially a collection of images stored in a PDF wrapper. The pages look like they contain text, but the PDF has no actual text data, only pictures of text. Basic text extraction tools cannot pull text from these files because there is no text to extract, only pixel data. For scanned PDFs, you need Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, which analyzes the images and converts the visual text into actual characters.
Hybrid PDFs
Some PDFs contain a mix of digital text and scanned images. A report might have native text pages with a scanned appendix, or a form might combine typed fields with a scanned signature page. These hybrid documents may yield partial text extraction, with the native text coming through cleanly while the scanned portions produce no output.
Understanding which type of PDF you have helps you set realistic expectations for the extraction results and choose the right tool for the job.
How to Extract Text from a PDF: Step-by-Step
Here is how to extract text from your PDF using ConvertKr’s free PDF to Text tool:
- Upload your PDF file. Open the PDF to Text tool and drag your document into the upload area. The tool accepts standard PDF files and begins processing immediately.
- Wait for extraction. The tool analyzes your PDF and extracts all readable text content. For native PDFs, this happens almost instantly. Larger documents with many pages may take a few extra seconds.
- Review the extracted text. Once extraction is complete, the full text appears in a preview area where you can scroll through it and verify the content. Check for any formatting issues or missing sections, especially if your PDF contained complex layouts like multi-column text or tables.
- Copy to clipboard. If you need the text for pasting into another application, use the copy button to place the entire extracted text on your clipboard. You can then paste it directly into a Word document, email, spreadsheet, or any other application.
- Download as a TXT file. For archiving or further processing, download the extracted text as a plain TXT file. This gives you a permanent, lightweight copy of the text content that opens in any text editor on any operating system.
Tips for Better Text Extraction Results
Check the PDF Type First
Before extracting, try selecting text in your PDF viewer by clicking and dragging. If you can highlight individual words and sentences, the PDF contains native text and extraction will work well. If clicking selects the entire page as an image, you likely have a scanned PDF that may need OCR processing.
Handle Multi-Column Layouts Carefully
PDFs with two or three columns of text can confuse extraction tools. The tool might read across columns instead of down each column separately, mixing text from different sections. If you get jumbled results from a multi-column document, you may need to manually reorganize the extracted text or process individual sections separately.
Watch for Special Characters
Some PDFs use custom fonts or character encodings that do not map cleanly to standard text. Mathematical symbols, special punctuation, ligatures, and characters from non-Latin scripts can sometimes appear incorrectly in extracted text. Review the output and correct any character-encoding issues before using the text in your final project.
Tables Require Extra Attention
Tabular data in PDFs rarely extracts into neatly formatted tables. The text extraction pulls out all the cell contents, but the row and column structure is usually lost. For tables, you might need to manually reformat the extracted data into a spreadsheet, or consider using a dedicated PDF-to-Excel conversion tool for better results.
Clean Up Formatting Artifacts
Extracted text often includes artifacts from the PDF formatting: extra line breaks in the middle of paragraphs, multiple spaces between words, or header and footer text repeated on every page. Plan to spend a few minutes cleaning up these artifacts, especially for longer documents. A find-and-replace pass in your text editor can handle most common issues quickly.
What to Do After Extracting Text
Once you have your extracted text, here are some common next steps:
Organize and Edit
Paste the text into a word processor and clean up any formatting issues. Add headings, fix paragraph breaks, and remove any header or footer text that was repeated throughout the extraction. This transforms raw extracted text into a usable document.
Import into Other Systems
Copy the extracted text into your target application, whether that is a content management system, a database, a note-taking app, or an email. Plain text is universally compatible, so it will paste cleanly into virtually any software.
Combine with Other PDF Operations
Text extraction is often just one part of a larger document workflow. You might need to split a large PDF into sections before extracting text from specific parts, or merge several PDFs before doing a single comprehensive extraction. If you are working with a PDF that has pages in the wrong order, organize the pages first so your extracted text follows the correct sequence.
Archive Both Versions
Keep the original PDF alongside your extracted text file. The PDF preserves the visual formatting, images, and layout, while the text file gives you searchable, editable content. Having both versions ensures you always have access to the information in whatever format you need.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I extract text from a password-protected PDF?
If the PDF is protected with a password that restricts copying, you will need to enter the password or remove the protection before extraction can work. PDFs with view-only passwords that do not restrict copying can usually be processed normally.
Will the extracted text include images?
No. Text extraction pulls only the character data from the PDF. Images, graphics, charts, and other visual elements are not included in the output. If you need the images, you would need to use a separate image extraction tool or take screenshots from the original PDF.
How accurate is the extraction?
For native digital PDFs with standard fonts, accuracy is typically very high, close to 100 percent for well-formatted documents. Accuracy decreases with unusual fonts, complex layouts, scanned documents, and low-quality source files. Always review the extracted text against the original PDF to catch any errors.
Is there a page limit for extraction?
The tool handles standard documents of typical length without issues. Whether your PDF is 5 pages or 50, the extraction process works the same way. Very long documents may take slightly more processing time, but the tool is built for real-world document sizes.
Extracting text from PDFs unlocks the content trapped inside formatted documents and makes it available for editing, searching, and repurposing. Whether you are a researcher pulling quotes from academic papers, a business professional processing invoice data, or a writer repurposing content for a new audience, the PDF to Text tool gets the job done quickly and for free. Give it a try and see how much easier your document workflow becomes.