Free online PDF to TEXT converter

A script, terminal editor, database, or archival system may require plain text instead of a PDF. Converting creates a smaller, searchable .txt file, but scanned pages require OCR before their words can be extracted.

What the PDF format is

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a fixed-layout format developed by Adobe to preserve page dimensions, fonts, positioning, images, and other document elements across operating systems. Word processors, desktop-publishing applications, scanners, web browsers, and virtual printers create PDFs; common software includes Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, and macOS Preview.

A PDF can contain a selectable text layer, page images only, or both. Its layout may include columns, tables, headers, footers, positioned labels, embedded fonts, forms, comments, and links. PDF is used for contracts, invoices, manuals, reports, scanned records, and documents that must retain their visual appearance when shared or printed.

What the TEXT format is

TEXT usually means a plain-text file such as document.txt. It stores characters and line breaks without fonts, colors, images, page geometry, tables, hyperlinks, or other styling.

Plain text is small and broadly compatible with command-line tools, scripts, databases, source-control systems, email systems, terminal editors, screen readers, and long-term data-processing workflows. It is easy to search and edit, but it cannot preserve the PDF's visual layout or reliably represent structured tables.

How to convert PDF to TEXT

Using the 101convert.com converter

1. Open the PDF-to-TEXT conversion page on 101convert.com.
2. Upload the PDF and select TEXT or TXT as the output format.
3. Start the conversion and download the generated .txt file.

This option runs in a web browser without installing software. Do not upload confidential or regulated documents unless the service's current privacy and retention terms are acceptable.

Using Poppler's pdftotext

Poppler's pdftotext is a fast, scriptable choice for PDFs that contain selectable text. Install Poppler through the operating system's package manager, then run:

pdftotext -enc UTF-8 input.pdf output.txt

For documents with columns or simple tables, try:

pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt

-layout preserves more horizontal spacing, but the extra spaces can make downstream parsing less reliable. To extract only pages 2 through 5, use:

pdftotext -f 2 -l 5 input.pdf output.txt

On Windows, run the command from the directory containing the Poppler binaries or add that directory to PATH. On macOS and Linux, a package-manager installation normally makes pdftotext available in the terminal.

Using desktop software

In Adobe Acrobat, open the PDF and choose File → Export To → Text, then select the destination and save the plain-text file. Menu names can vary by Acrobat version. Some other PDF viewers provide a plain-text option under File → Save As, but many only save a new PDF.

For scanned PDFs

If words cannot be selected or copied, the PDF probably contains page images rather than a text layer. Run OCR first with OCRmyPDF, which commonly uses Tesseract:

ocrmypdf -l eng --deskew input.pdf searchable.pdf

The -l eng option selects English recognition data; use the appropriate installed language code for another language or a multilingual document. Then extract the OCR text:

pdftotext -enc UTF-8 searchable.pdf output.txt

OCRmyPDF may require separate Tesseract language-data packages. OCR is not needed when the original PDF already contains accurate selectable text.

Quality and compatibility limitations

• Text extraction follows character positions stored in the PDF, not necessarily the intended reading order. Multi-column pages, sidebars, footnotes, rotated text, headers, and decorative labels can appear out of sequence.
• Tables usually become lines of text with spaces or inconsistent delimiters. If the data must remain structured, export it to CSV or another tabular format instead of TXT and verify every row and column.
• Ligatures, missing font mappings, unusual encodings, and damaged PDFs can produce incorrect characters. Check names, numbers, symbols, and non-Latin text against the source.
• OCR can misread characters, especially in low-resolution, skewed, noisy, handwritten, or unusually typeset scans. Review important output manually.
• Plain text does not retain images, colors, page layout, clickable links, comments, form fields, or visual page numbers.
• Password-protected or extraction-restricted PDFs may require the correct password or permission from the owner before conversion; conversion tools should not be used to bypass access controls.