How to Extract Text from PDF: Complete Guide (2025)

TL;DR: Extract text from PDF using: free online tools (fastest), copy-paste (simplest), PDF readers with export, desktop software like Adobe Acrobat, programming libraries, or OCR for scanned PDFs. For best results, use our free PDF to Text Converter for instant browser-based extraction.

Need to extract text from a PDF? Whether you're copying a quote, converting documents for editing, or extracting data for analysis, there are multiple ways to get text out of PDF files.

In this comprehensive guide, you'll learn 6 different methods to extract text from PDF, from simple copy-paste to advanced OCR techniques, with detailed step-by-step instructions.

Why Extract Text from PDF Files?

PDFs are great for viewing and sharing documents, but terrible for editing. Here's why you might need to extract text:

Common Use Cases:

• Copy Content - Quote text from research papers or articles
• Data Entry - Extract information from invoices, forms, or reports
• Document Conversion - Convert PDF to Word, Excel, or plain text
• Text Analysis - Process text for keyword extraction or sentiment analysis
• Content Migration - Move content from PDFs to websites or CMSs
• Accessibility - Make PDF content searchable and screen-reader friendly
• Translation - Extract text for translation to other languages
• Archiving - Create searchable text archives from document scans

Method 1: Free Online PDF to Text Converter (Fastest)

The easiest way to extract text from PDF is using a free online converter.

Using CreatorFormat PDF to Text Tool:

1. Visit our PDF to Text Converter
2. Upload your PDF file (drag & drop or click to browse)
3. Click "Extract Text from PDF"
4. View extracted text organized by page numbers
5. Copy to clipboard or download as TXT file

Step-by-Step Process:

Upload PDF → Extract Text → Preview Results → Copy or Download
   ↓              ↓              ↓                   ↓
  50MB max    5-30 seconds   Page-by-page      TXT format

Pros & Cons:

✅ Advantages:

• 100% free with unlimited conversions
• No software installation required
• Works in your browser (privacy-focused)
• Supports multi-page PDFs
• Organized output by page numbers
• Copy to clipboard instantly

❌ Limitations:

• Requires internet connection
• Works best with text-based PDFs
• Scanned PDFs need OCR (coming soon)
• 50MB file size limit

Best For: Quick text extraction, research quotes, content copying, multi-page documents

Alternative Online Tools:

PDF2Go - Browser-based with OCR support, 100MB limit (source)

PDFCandy - Free extraction with no registration, batch processing available (source)

Xodo - Convert PDF to text with formatting preservation (source)

PDFForge - EU-based servers with strict privacy policies (source)

Method 2: Copy-Paste (Simplest Method)

For small amounts of text, the old-fashioned copy-paste works perfectly.

How to Copy Text from PDF:

Using Any PDF Reader:

1. Open PDF in your browser, Adobe Reader, or Preview (Mac)
2. Select text by clicking and dragging your cursor
3. Right-click → "Copy" (or press Ctrl+C / Cmd+C)
4. Paste into Word, Notepad, or any text editor

Pro Tips for Better Copy-Paste:

✅ Select Carefully

• Double-click to select a word
• Triple-click to select a paragraph
• Ctrl+A / Cmd+A to select all text
• Hold Shift to extend selection

✅ Preserve Formatting

• Paste into Word to keep formatting
• Use "Paste Special" → "Unformatted Text" for plain text
• Clean up manually if spacing is weird

When Copy-Paste Doesn't Work:

❌ Scanned PDFs - Text is actually an image (needs OCR) ❌ Protected PDFs - Copying disabled by security settings ❌ Image-based PDFs - Photos or screenshots embedded ❌ Forms - Interactive PDF forms may not copy properly

Best For: Short passages, quotes, single pages, quick copying

Method 3: Desktop PDF Software

Professional PDF software offers advanced text extraction features.

Adobe Acrobat Pro (Paid - $19.99/month)

Export to Text File:

1. Open PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro
2. File → Export To → Text (Plain Text)
3. Choose save location
4. Click "Save"

Advanced Options:

• Accessible Text - Better formatting preservation
• Page Range - Extract specific pages only
• Encoding - UTF-8 for international characters
• Layout - Maintain reading order and columns

Free PDF Readers with Export:

Foxit Reader (Free)

• Export to TXT format
• Batch conversion support
• OCR plugin available

PDF-XChange Editor (Free)

• Export to text with formatting
• Extract text from annotations
• Command-line automation

SumatraPDF (Open Source)

• Lightweight and fast
• Copy all text easily
• Portable version available

Best For:

• Regular PDF users
• Large file processing
• Preserving document structure
• Professional workflows

Method 4: Using Python and Programming Libraries

For developers and automation, programming offers powerful text extraction.

Python with PyPDF2:

import PyPDF2

# Open PDF file
with open('document.pdf', 'rb') as file:
    # Create PDF reader object
    pdf_reader = PyPDF2.PdfReader(file)

    # Extract text from all pages
    full_text = ""
    for page_num in range(len(pdf_reader.pages)):
        page = pdf_reader.pages[page_num]
        full_text += page.extract_text()

    # Save to text file
    with open('extracted_text.txt', 'w', encoding='utf-8') as output:
        output.write(full_text)

print("Text extraction complete!")

Advanced: PDF.js (JavaScript)

import * as pdfjsLib from 'pdfjs-dist';

async function extractText(pdfUrl) {
  const pdf = await pdfjsLib.getDocument(pdfUrl).promise;
  let fullText = '';

  for (let i = 1; i <= pdf.numPages; i++) {
    const page = await pdf.getPage(i);
    const textContent = await page.getTextContent();
    const pageText = textContent.items.map(item => item.str).join(' ');
    fullText += `--- Page ${i} ---\\n${pageText}\\n\\n`;
  }

  return fullText;
}

Popular Libraries:

Best For: Automation, batch processing, custom workflows, data extraction pipelines

Method 5: OCR for Scanned PDFs

Scanned PDFs (images of text) require Optical Character Recognition (OCR).

What is OCR?

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) converts images of text into actual editable text. Essential for:

• Scanned documents
• Photo PDFs
• Screenshots
• Image-based PDFs

Free OCR Tools:

Google Drive OCR (Free)

1. Upload PDF to Google Drive
2. Right-click → Open with → Google Docs
3. Google automatically performs OCR
4. Copy extracted text from document

Accuracy: Good for English, supports 50+ languages

Tesseract OCR (Open Source)

# Install Tesseract
# macOS
brew install tesseract

# Ubuntu
sudo apt install tesseract-ocr

# Extract text
tesseract input.pdf output.txt

Adobe Acrobat OCR:

1. Open scanned PDF
2. Tools → Scan & OCR
3. Choose "Recognize Text" → "In This File"
4. Export to text format

Online OCR Services:

• OCR.space - Free API with 25,000 requests/month
• OnlineOCR - No registration, 15 pages/hour free
• i2OCR - Supports 100+ languages
• NewOCR - Free unlimited conversions

OCR Best Practices:

✅ Improve OCR Accuracy:

• Use high-resolution scans (300 DPI minimum)
• Ensure good contrast and lighting
• Straighten skewed pages
• Clean up noise and artifacts
• Use appropriate language settings

Best For: Scanned documents, old books, photo PDFs, archived files

Method 6: Command Line Tools (Advanced)

For tech-savvy users, command-line tools offer automation and scripting.

pdftotext (Part of Poppler)

Installation:

# macOS
brew install poppler

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install poppler-utils

# Windows (via Chocolatey)
choco install poppler

Basic Usage:

# Extract all text
pdftotext document.pdf output.txt

# Extract specific pages
pdftotext -f 1 -l 5 document.pdf output.txt

# Maintain layout
pdftotext -layout document.pdf output.txt

# Get raw text (no layout)
pdftotext -raw document.pdf output.txt

Advanced Options:

# Extract with encoding
pdftotext -enc UTF-8 document.pdf output.txt

# Extract with bounding box
pdftotext -bbox document.pdf output.html

# Extract with formatting hints
pdftotext -htmlmeta document.pdf output.html

# Batch process all PDFs
for file in *.pdf; do pdftotext "$file" "${file%.pdf}.txt"; done

Best For: Batch processing, automation scripts, server-side processing, Linux environments

Best Practices for PDF Text Extraction

Follow these tips for optimal results:

Before Extracting:

✅ Check PDF Type

• Test if text is selectable (try copy-paste first)
• Identify scanned vs. text-based PDFs
• Check for password protection

✅ Prepare Your File

• Remove unnecessary pages
• Straighten scanned pages
• Optimize large files (compress if needed)

During Extraction:

✅ Choose Right Tool

• Simple extraction → Online converter or copy-paste
• Scanned PDFs → OCR tools
• Batch processing → Command line or Python
• Professional use → Adobe Acrobat Pro

✅ Settings Matter

• Maintain layout for tables and columns
• Use UTF-8 encoding for special characters
• Extract page-by-page for better organization

After Extraction:

✅ Clean Up Text

• Remove extra line breaks
• Fix spacing issues
• Correct OCR errors manually
• Format for your use case

✅ Verify Accuracy

• Compare with original PDF
• Check for missing content
• Verify special characters and symbols

Troubleshooting Common PDF Text Extraction Issues

Issue 1: Can't Select or Copy Text

Problem: Text appears in PDF but can't be selected.

Solutions:

1. Scanned PDF - Use OCR tool (Method 5)
2. Security Protected - Remove password protection first
3. Image-based PDF - Convert using OCR software
4. Form Fields - Use form data extraction tools

Issue 2: Extracted Text is Gibberish

Problem: Text comes out as random characters or symbols.

Solutions:

1. Wrong Encoding - Use UTF-8 encoding
2. Font Embedding Issue - Try different extraction tool
3. Encrypted PDF - Decrypt before extracting
4. Non-standard Fonts - Convert to standard fonts first

Issue 3: Missing Text or Partial Extraction

Problem: Some text doesn't extract or is incomplete.

Solutions:

1. Hidden Layers - Check PDF layers, extract all
2. White Text - Text might be invisible (white on white)
3. Images as Text - Requires OCR processing
4. Complex Layout - Use layout-aware extraction

Issue 4: Formatting is Completely Lost

Problem: Extracted text has no structure or organization.

Solutions:

1. Enable Layout Mode - Use -layout flag in pdftotext
2. Export to HTML - Preserve more structure
3. Use Adobe Acrobat - Better formatting preservation
4. Manual Cleanup - Accept some manual reformatting

Issue 5: Special Characters are Wrong

Problem: Accents, symbols, or foreign characters corrupted.

Solutions:

1. Set UTF-8 Encoding - Explicitly specify UTF-8
2. Use Unicode Tools - Choose Unicode-compatible software
3. Check Original PDF - Verify if it displays correctly
4. Try Different Tool - Some handle encoding better

PDF to Text Conversion: Free vs Paid Tools Comparison

Related Tools and Workflows

Enhance your PDF workflow with these companion tools:

Convert Extracted Text:

• Text to PDF - Convert plain text back to PDF with formatting
• TXT to EPUB - Create ebooks from extracted text
• PDF to Word - Editable document conversion

Process PDF Files:

• PDF Merger - Combine multiple PDFs before extraction
• PDF Splitter - Extract specific pages first
• PDF Compressor - Reduce file size for easier processing

Image to Text:

• JPG to PDF - Convert images to PDF first
• HEIC to JPG - Convert iPhone photos before OCR

Conclusion: Best Way to Extract Text from PDF in 2025

After testing all methods, here's our recommendation:

For Most Users:

Use Our Free PDF to Text Converter

• Instant browser-based extraction
• No software installation
• Privacy-focused (no upload to cloud)
• Supports multi-page PDFs
• Copy or download as TXT

For Quick Copy-Paste:

Select and Copy Directly in PDF Reader

• Fastest for short passages
• Works in any PDF viewer
• No conversion needed

For Scanned PDFs:

Google Drive OCR (Free) or Adobe Acrobat OCR (Paid)

• Essential for image-based PDFs
• Good accuracy for most languages
• Converts images to selectable text

For Automation:

Python with PyPDF2 or pdftotext

• Perfect for batch processing
• Scriptable and customizable
• Ideal for developers

For Professional Use:

Adobe Acrobat Pro - $19.99/month

• Best quality and speed
• Advanced OCR included
• Batch processing support

Ready to Extract Text from Your PDFs?

Start with our free tools:

• PDF to Text Converter - Extract text instantly in your browser
• PDF to Word - Convert to editable Word document
• PDF Splitter - Extract specific pages first

Have questions about PDF text extraction? Drop a comment below!

Related Articles:

• How to Convert PDF to Kindle Format
• EPUB vs PDF vs MOBI: Which Format is Best?
• How to Send PDF to Kindle

Sources:

• PDF2Go PDF to Text Converter
• PDFCandy Extract Text Tool
• Xodo PDF to Text Converter
• PDFForge Extract Text Tool
• IronPDF Text Extraction Tutorial