PDF to Text online for free. Extract all the text from your pdf in seconds — fast, secure, and with no software to install.
Need to get the words out of a PDF? This free tool extracts text from PDF files and returns a clean, plain-text (.txt) document you can copy, search, edit, or feed into another program. There's nothing to install and no account required — upload your file, and PDF4 pulls out every line of selectable text while preserving the natural reading order.
If your PDF is a scan or photo, the pages are images and contain no selectable text. Run it through OCR first to add a searchable text layer, then extract the text here. For structured output instead of plain text, try PDF to Markdown or PDF to JSON.
Doing this at scale? Every tool here is also part of the PDF4 API and available to AI agents over MCP, so you can extract text from thousands of PDFs from your own code.
Yes. You can extract all the text from your PDF right here online for free — no account, email, or credit card required. Sign up only if you want higher limits, larger files, or API access.
Yes. Uploads travel over an encrypted HTTPS connection, are processed on our servers, and are automatically deleted within a few hours. We never share or sell your documents.
No. PDF4 works entirely in your web browser, so there is nothing to download or install. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.
Upload your PDF above and PDF4 extracts all of its selectable text into a plain-text .txt file you can download — free, with no signup or software to install.
Scanned PDFs are images, so run them through OCR PDF first to create a text layer, then extract the text here. PDF4's OCR recognizes text in scans and photos so it becomes selectable and searchable.