About this tool
Extract text content from a PDF — invoices, receipts, contracts, forms, reports — and get it as plain text you can copy, search, or feed into another program. Especially useful when the PDF's selectable-text behaviour is broken or when you need to process the content programmatically.
When to use it
- Pulling data from PDF invoices or receipts to enter into accounting software
- Extracting paragraph text from a contract for review or analysis
- Getting text out of a PDF for input into a search index or summariser
- Copying a passage when the PDF blocks normal copy-paste
- Producing a plain-text version of a document for accessibility or processing
What to expect
Extraction works on PDFs with a real text layer. Image-only PDFs (scanned without OCR) won't produce text — they need OCR first to add a text layer. Multi-column layouts may extract column-by-column rather than across the visual page; check the result against the source.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the extracted text empty?
Your PDF is likely image-only — a scan without an embedded text layer. The page looks like text to you but is actually a picture. Run OCR (optical character recognition) first to make the text extractable.
Will tables come out cleanly?
Tables are challenging — PDFs don't carry table structure, just positioned text. Simple grid tables often extract reasonably; complex tables with merged cells or visual borders may need manual cleanup.
Are images and figures included?
Only the alt-text or label, if present. For the actual images, use the Extract Images tool. For text inside images (charts, diagrams), OCR the PDF first.