How-To2026-03-223 min read
How to Extract Text from a PDF — Copy All Text
Extract Text from PDF
Go to Extract Text or PDF to Text
Upload your PDF
Click Process & Download
Get a .txt file with all text from every page
Digital vs Scanned PDFs
| Type | Text Extraction | Tool |
|------|----------------|------|
| Digital PDF (from Word, etc.) | Works perfectly | [Extract Text](/tools/extract-text) |
| Scanned PDF (from scanner) | Needs OCR | [OCR](/tools/ocr-pdf) |
What You Get
The output is a plain text file with page separators:
```
--- Page 1 ---
All text from page 1...
--- Page 2 ---
All text from page 2...
```
Related Tools
OCR — extract text from scanned/image PDFs
PDF to HTML — extract with formatting
PDF to Word — convert to editable Word document
Summarize PDF — AI-generated summary