Copy text from a PDF
Need to copy text from a PDF that will not let you select — or whose copy comes out as gibberish? Drop it here. Digital pages are read from the text layer; scanned pages are converted with local OCR. Headers and footers are stripped.
- Copy when select is blocked
- Convert PDF image to text
- Strip headers & footers
- Copy without broken line breaks
Drop a PDF to copy its text
Select blocked, scanned, or a broken text layer — digital pages are read directly, scans are OCRed here in the tab.
…or press Ctrl+V / ⌘+V to paste
100% local — files never leave your browser
How to copy text from a PDF
Drop the PDF
A report, paper, invoice, ebook or a scan of paper. There is no upload — the file is opened in this tab.
Text layer or scan, automatically
Pages with a usable text layer are extracted directly. Scanned or broken pages are rendered and OCRed locally, page by page, which is what converting a PDF image to text actually requires. Force OCR if the text layer is encoded wrong.
Copy a clean document
Repeated headers, footers and page numbers are removed. Toggle cleanup to join hard-wrapped lines. Tables can go out as Excel, Markdown or CSV.
When a PDF will not let you copy
Scanned pages, no extra step
A “PDF” that is photographs of paper has nothing to select — every page is an image. Each page is checked; scans fall back to local OCR on their own, so converting a PDF image to text is not a separate tool or a separate upload.
Copy without the repeating junk
Running headers, footers and page numbers are detected across pages and stripped from the combined text.
Copy without broken line breaks
PDFs store text as positioned fragments, so a copy-paste is often one word per line. Cleanup joins those lines and stray hyphens — without rewriting the wording.
The PDF never leaves this tab
Contracts and invoices stay on your device. pdf.js and OCR run in the browser. File bytes and extracted text are not uploaded or logged.
Frequently asked questions
Why can’t I copy text from this PDF?
Usually one of three things: the pages are scans (pixels, no text layer), the file blocks copying, or the text layer is encoded so badly that a normal copy is garbage. This page handles the first two automatically, and “Re-extract with OCR” covers the third.
How do I convert a PDF image to text?
Drop the file in. Any page without a usable text layer is rendered to a bitmap and run through OCR locally, so image-only pages come out as real text alongside the digital ones. Expect a few seconds per scanned page.
Can I extract text from a scanned PDF?
Yes. Each page is checked independently, so a mixed file — a digital report with a scanned appendix — converts correctly without you sorting the pages first.
Is this PDF to text converter free?
Yes, with no page cap and no account. Because the conversion runs on your own machine rather than our servers, there is no per-file cost to pass on.
How do I copy text from a PDF without broken line breaks?
Toggle “Clean up text” after extraction. It joins hard-wrapped lines and removes hyphenation left over from the layout. Turn it off and the raw copy is still there.
Can I copy a table from a PDF into Excel?
Grid-like regions are reconstructed as tables you can copy as Excel, Markdown or CSV. Digital PDFs use the text positions; scans go through the same local table models as images.
Is the PDF uploaded or stored?
No. It is parsed in your browser with pdf.js and local OCR. We never receive the file or the extracted text.
Related guides
Scanned pages, locked files, and getting a clean copy out of a long PDF.
Guide
How to Convert a PDF Image to Text, Free and Locally
Some PDF pages are images, not text. How to tell which ones, convert them to real text with OCR, and handle files that mix both kinds of page.
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How to Extract Text from a Scanned PDF (Free, No Upload)
Scanned PDFs are just pictures of pages. Here is how to tell, and how to OCR them into copyable text — including garbled text layers — without uploading.
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Can’t Select That Text? Here’s How to Copy It Anyway
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