Free · No sign-up · Runs in your browser

Extract text from a PDF.

Get every word out of a PDF as plain text you can paste anywhere: into an email, a notes app, a translator or an AI chat. Line breaks are tidied into proper paragraphs, and nothing leaves your device.

Not uploaded — nobody sees it Paragraphs rejoined Copy or download .txt Spots scanned pages

Drop your PDF here, or click to browse One PDF at a time · up to a few hundred pages Join lines back into paragraphs (recommended for reading and copying) Mark where each page starts (“--- Page 3 ---”)

Your file is never uploaded — it’s processed right here in this browser tab, on your device. It never reaches a server, so we never see it, copy it or keep it.

At a glance

PDF to text: quick facts

Extract all the text from a PDF as a clean .txt file.

Updated 8 October 2026

Price: Free. No sign-up, no watermark.
Options: Lines joined back into paragraphs, optional page markers, copy in one click.
Output: Plain text in reading order, without layout, tables or pictures.
Scans: Scanned PDFs have no text to extract; PDF to Word reads scans with OCR.
Privacy: Your file is processed in your browser and never uploaded.

How it works

How to convert a PDF to text

A PDF engine running in this tab reads the text stored on each page, along with where each piece sits. Altto puts the pieces back into lines and paragraphs in reading order, then gives you the result as plain UTF-8 text.

Add your PDF

Drop in a PDF. Text-based PDFs work best: ones made from Word, a website or an app.

Choose how lines are joined

Keep paragraphs flowing, or keep every line as it is on the page.

Copy or download

Check the preview, then copy it or save it as a .txt file.

Tips

Getting cleaner text out of a PDF

How good the text looks depends on how the PDF was made. These tips cover the usual problems.

Headers and page numbers in the middleRunning headers, footers and page numbers are part of the page text, so they appear where each page starts. Turn on page markers to see where they come from, then delete them in one go in your editor.
Strange characters or gibberishSome PDFs use fonts that store letters with private codes, so the text can’t be read back properly by any tool. Converting with OCR via PDF to Word usually rescues these.
Need words and formatting?Plain text drops bold, headings and tables. PDF to Word keeps them in an editable .docx.
Just counting words?The status line shows the word count for the whole PDF. For page counts across several files, use the PDF Page Counter.

Like every Altto tool, this runs on your device — nothing you add is uploaded. How Altto works

.txt

is the most portable file there is. Plain UTF-8 text opens on every phone and computer, pastes cleanly into any form, and is tiny compared with the PDF it came from.

Which tool?

PDF to text, Word or Excel: which do you need?

All three pull content out of a PDF. They suit different jobs.

Choosing an Altto PDF converter
You want	Use	You get
Just the words, to paste or search	PDF to Text (this page)	A plain .txt file, paragraphs kept
To edit the document with its formatting	PDF to Word	An editable .docx with headings, tables and images
Numbers from tables, to calculate with	PDF to Excel	An .xlsx spreadsheet
Text from a scanned PDF	PDF to Word	OCR runs automatically

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What to expect from text extraction. To summarise a long PDF instead, try Summarise PDF.

Why is the text coming out empty?

The PDF is almost certainly a scan: each page is a photo of paper, so there are no letters stored in it, just pixels. Extracting text from those needs OCR (optical character recognition). PDF to Word on Altto runs OCR in your browser automatically and gives you editable text.

Is the layout kept?

No, and that’s the point of a .txt file: it’s plain text with no fonts, columns, tables or pictures. The words come out in reading order with paragraphs kept apart. If you need the layout as well, convert the PDF to Word instead.

What does “join lines back into paragraphs” do?

PDFs store text line by line, so copying from one usually gives you a hard break at the end of every line. With this option on, lines that belong to the same paragraph are joined back together, and words split with a hyphen at the end of a line are rejoined. Turn it off to keep every line exactly as it sits on the page, which is better for poems, addresses and code.

How are columns and tables handled?

Text is read top to bottom, left to right. Two-column articles usually come out correctly, column by column, when the PDF was made with proper reading order; some files mix lines from both columns. Tables come out as rows of text separated by spaces. For tables you’d like in a spreadsheet, use PDF to Excel.

Can it read password-protected PDFs?

If a PDF needs a password to open, unlock it first with Unlock PDF (you’ll need the password), then extract the text here. PDFs that open without a password but block copying usually work fine.

Is the PDF uploaded?

No. The text is read by a PDF engine running in this tab, and the .txt file is created on your device. That makes it suitable for contracts, payslips and anything else private.

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