PDF to Plain Text

How PDF to Plain Text works

Upload a digital PDF (max 10MB) with selectable text and click Extract Text. We extract the embedded text and clean it: we fix hyphenated line breaks (e.g. "docu-\nment" becomes "document"), remove excessive blank lines, and normalize spaces. The result is readable plain text for editing, searching, or repurposing. This tool works only with digital PDFs that contain selectable text; for scanned documents use Image to Text (OCR). Your file is deleted after processing. Need Markdown? Try PDF to Markdown. For Word output, use PDF to Word.

When should you use PDF to Plain Text?

• When you need plain text from a PDF for editing or analysis
• When you want to search or reuse text without PDF formatting
• When preparing content for other tools that accept plain text
• When you have digital PDFs (not scanned) with selectable text
• When you need clean text without hyphenation or extra line breaks

Supported formats

Input formats: PDF only. Digital PDFs with selectable text. Max 10MB. No OCR—scanned PDFs not supported.
Output formats: Plain text (.txt). Cleaned: hyphenation fixed, spaces normalized.

Common problems & fixes

• Scanned PDF or no text extracted: This tool extracts embedded text only. For scanned documents, use Image to Text (OCR).
• File size limit: Maximum 10MB per PDF. For larger files, split first using PDF Split.
• Hyphenation or layout issues: We fix common hyphenated line breaks and normalize spaces. Proofread for complex layouts.

Frequently Asked Questions