Convert PDF to Text

Extract selectable text from a PDF into a plain text file. This works best with electronically generated PDFs. Scanned documents may contain little or no extractable text unless they have OCR applied. QuakeStar allows up to 7 conversions every 2 hours.

Conversions remaining: 7

When does PDF-to-text work best?

PDFs created directly from word processors, spreadsheets or web pages usually contain real text that can be extracted cleanly. Scanned documents store pages as images, so text extraction depends on whether OCR was performed before upload.

What is extracted?

The tool extracts the visible text content and saves it as a plain .txt file. Formatting, images, tables and fonts are not preserved in the text output.

PDF to text FAQ

Why is my scanned PDF mostly blank?: Scanned PDFs are images. Without OCR, there is no text to extract. You would need OCR software first.
Is the extracted text perfect?: Text extraction is usually very good for simple documents. Complex layouts, columns, tables and special characters may not come out exactly as they appear.
What encoding is the output?: The output is plain UTF-8 text.