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Extract Text from PDF

Get the text out of any PDF or scan — read directly where the page has text, recognised where it is an image. Content is pulled out of the source container rather than re-authored.

Not uploaded to any serverConverted on this deviceGone when you close the tabHow this works

Drop your files here

PDF, JPG, PNG, WebP and 1 more formats · up to 200 MB each

or paste files from your clipboard

Ready when you are

Get the text out of any PDF or scan — read directly where the page has text, recognised where it is an image. Everything happens in this tab; nothing is sent anywhere.

⌘K to search converters

How to use it

1
Add your files
Extract Text from PDF works with PDF, JPG, PNG, WebP and TIFF. Drop them in, browse for them, or paste from your clipboard.
2
Choose your options
Tune the output settings — or leave the defaults, which are sensible.
3
Run it and download
Press the button and save the result. Everything happens on your device, and nothing is uploaded.

Privacy, in plain words

Is it safe? Your PDF is not uploaded anywhere

What “uploaded” normally means. On most online converters, pressing the button copies your file across the internet onto a computer owned by that website. That copy is what the word “upload” means, and it is the part nobody explains.

What happens instead. This site does not do it. There is no server here that receives files, so your PDF is read, converted and handed back by the browser you are using right now. It never travels — so there is no copy to store, read, leak or hand over.

Check it yourself in ten seconds

Turn off your Wi-Fi after this page has loaded, then convert a file anyway. It still works, because everything needed is already on your device.

The longer explanation of how this works, and the full detail of what is and is not stored on the privacy page.

Why this matters more than it sounds

PDF is the format people use for exactly the documents they would not hand to a stranger. It matters more than it sounds, because of what PDFs usually are:

Payslips

salary, employer, and usually your home address

Bank statements

account numbers, balances, every payee you have

Signed contracts

your signature, and terms you may be under NDA about

Tax returns

income, dependants, tax file or social security numbers

A file that is never sent cannot be kept, leaked, subpoenaed or used to train anything. That is a property of how this works, not a promise about how carefully it is run.

How Extract Text from PDF works

Get the text out of any PDF or scan — read directly where the page has text, recognised where it is an image. Everything happens inside this page: the file is read from your device into memory, processed there, and handed back as a download. It is never sent anywhere, and closing the tab discards it.

What it accepts: PDF, JPG, PNG, WebP, TIFF. Files are identified by their contents rather than their name, so a mislabelled file is still handled correctly.
What you get back: A TXT file, downloaded straight to your device.
What happens to the data: Content is taken out of the container as it stands, not re-authored. Anything that belonged to the container rather than to the content does not come with it.
Size limit: Up to 200 MB per file. Because the work happens on your own machine, available memory is the real constraint — a laptop handles far more than a phone.

The settings, and what each one changes

Extract Text from PDF exposes 6 settings. The defaults are chosen to suit the common case, so changing nothing is a reasonable way to start.

How to read the pages: Choose between Automatic, Text layer only, Recognise everything.
Language of the scan: Choose between English, Spanish, French, German and others.
Recognition detail: Choose between 200 DPI — faster, less accurate, 300 DPI — recommended, 400 DPI — slowest, for small print.
Clean up the page before reading it: On or off. Off is the default for extract text from pdf unless stated otherwise.
Page range: Comma-separated. Use a trailing dash for 'to the end'. The page editor above fills this in as you work.
Per-page turns: Set by the page editor when you turn individual pages. Page number, then the angle.

Worth knowing before you start

Pages that already contain text are read exactly, with no recognition step. Only pages that are images go through OCR, which runs entirely in your browser in any of 66 languages. Recognition is not exact: clean, straight, high-contrast scans work well; handwriting does not.

Measured, not estimated

What this tool actually does to a file

Pulling the text out of a six-page document into a plain text file.

It depends entirely on the content: across the samples the result ranged from 96× smaller to 2.0× larger, with a middle case about the same size.

Each row is one document, chosen because this tool behaves differently depending on what is inside the file.
Sample	In	Out	Change
An easy clipThe compressible end of the range — a clean tone, or a moving test pattern — where a codec does its best work.	6.7 KB	13.1 KB	+96%
A hard clipThe other end — pink noise, or dense video grain. Close to incompressible by design, and the worst case for every codec.	423 KB	4.4 KB	−99%

Produced by this site's own converter. The same code that runs in your browser, at the same default settings, so these are the bytes you would download.

Samples are generated from a fixed seed rather than taken from real photographs or documents, so the corpus is reproducible and carries no licensing question — and so the numbers predict the shape of your result rather than its exact size. Measured 2026-10-01. The method, and the command that regenerates every figure on this page, are on the how it works page.

About these formats

Accepts

Portable Document Format

Fixed-layout documents that look identical everywhere.

Extensions: .pdf
MIME type: application/pdf
Best for: Sharing documents · Printing · Contracts and forms
Compatibility: Universal.

Accepts

JPEG Image

The universal lossy photo format.

Extensions: .jpg, .jpeg, .jpe, .jfif
MIME type: image/jpeg
Best for: Photographs · Email and messaging · Maximum compatibility
Compatibility: Opens everywhere — every browser, OS and device.

Good to know

Extract Text from PDF — questions

How does Extract Text from PDF work?

Get the text out of any PDF or scan — read directly where the page has text, recognised where it is an image. Add your files above, adjust anything you want to change, and press the button. The result downloads straight to your device.

Is there anything I should watch out for?

Is Extract Text from PDF safe — are my files uploaded to a server?

No, nothing is uploaded. On most online tools, pressing the button copies your file across the internet onto a computer owned by that website, where it is processed and then sent back. That copy is what "upload" means. This tool does not do it: your file is read and processed by the browser you are using right now, stays on this device the whole time, and is discarded when you close the tab. Turn off your Wi-Fi after the page loads and it still works, which is the quickest way to confirm it.

Can I use this on confidential or personal documents?

Yes — that is the case it was built for. Because the file never leaves your device, a confidential document is no more exposed than it is sitting in your own folder: there is no transfer, no copy on anybody else's hardware, no retention period and no staff with access. Nothing about the file is logged either — not its name, not its size, not its contents.