How to extract text from a PDF
- 1 Open the tool at pdfdistrict.com/pdf-to-text/ and select your PDF.
- 2 Check the page count. The tool shows how many pages it will read.
- 3 Extract. Click “Extract Text.” A UTF-8 .txt file downloads, with a “Page N” marker between pages.
Will it work on my PDF?
| Your PDF | Result |
|---|---|
| Exported from Word, Docs or a website | Works: the text is real text |
| A scan or a photo of pages | No text found: the pages are images, and PDFDistrict does not do OCR |
| Password-protected | Cannot be opened by PDFDistrict |
What the text file looks like
You get lines of text in the order the PDF stores them. Tables and columns are not reproduced, and the order can differ from how the page looks. For only some pages, extract those pages first and convert the smaller PDF.
PDFDistrict is a free, browser-based PDF toolkit that processes files locally — files are never uploaded.
Frequently asked questions
How do I extract text from a PDF?
Open the PDF to Text tool, select your PDF and click Extract Text to download a .txt file.
Does it work on scanned PDFs?
No. Scanned PDFs contain images of text and PDFDistrict does not do OCR.
Are tables preserved?
No. You get lines of text in the order the PDF stores them.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. The text is read in your browser.