No. It reads the text layer. Use PDF OCR for photographs of pages.

Are layouts preserved?

Line breaks follow the PDF’s text items. Columns can interleave.

Is the file uploaded?

No. Your files stay on your device.

PDF to Text

Pull the selectable text out of a PDF and copy or download it.

Your files stay on your device. This reads the PDF’s text layer. It is not OCR — photographs of pages need PDF OCR.

PDF

Drop a PDF here, or browsePDF · up to 25.0 MB · click to browse

Upload a PDF to extract its selectable text.

Worked example

A digital invoice with selectable text extracts as ordinary lines you can copy or download as invoice-text.txt. A scan with almost no text is flagged so you can open PDF OCR instead.

FAQ

Is this OCR?: No. It reads the text layer. Use PDF OCR for photographs of pages.
Are layouts preserved?: Line breaks follow the PDF’s text items. Columns can interleave.
Is the file uploaded?: No. Your files stay on your device.