How to convert a PDF to a text file
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To convert a PDF to text, open the PDF to Text tool and add your file — PDFER extracts every page's text in reading order and downloads a plain .txt, all in your browser with nothing uploaded.
How text extraction works
PDFER reads the text objects the PDF stores for each page and reconstructs them into reading order — handling columns and line breaks — then writes the result to a .txt file.
The output is plain text only: no bold, no headings, no images, no page layout. That's exactly what you want when you need the raw words for search, editing, or feeding into another program.
Step by step
Open the PDF to Text tool, add your PDF, click Convert to text, and download the .txt. It opens in any text editor.
Reading order and columns
Text in a PDF isn't stored as sentences — it's positioned glyphs. PDFER groups them into lines and columns so a two-column article comes out in the order a human reads it, not scrambled left-to-right across both columns.
Very complex layouts (tables, sidebars, footnotes) can still interleave; for tabular data, PDF to Excel reconstructs rows and columns instead.
Scanned PDFs need OCR first
If your PDF is a scan or photo, it has no text layer — it's just an image — so a text export would be empty. Run the OCR tool first to add a searchable text layer, then convert to text.
Privacy: nothing is uploaded
Extraction runs on your device, so even a sensitive document's text never leaves your browser. For a formatted export instead of plain text, use PDF to Word or PDF to Markdown.
Tools mentioned in this guide
Frequently asked
- Why is my exported text file empty?
- The PDF is almost certainly a scan with no text layer. Run the OCR tool first to add selectable text, then convert to text.
- Does converting to text keep the formatting?
- No — a .txt file is plain text only, so fonts, headings, and images are dropped. For formatting, use PDF to Word or PDF to Markdown.
- Will the columns come out in the right order?
- PDFER reconstructs reading order, so multi-column pages export in the order you'd read them. Very complex layouts may still interleave.
- Is the PDF uploaded to extract its text?
- No. Text extraction happens in your browser, so the file never leaves your device.