# How to convert a PDF to text > To convert a PDF to text, add the file to PDF to Text and press Extract text. The words of every page appear in reading order, and you can copy them or download a .txt file. This works on pages that contain real text, not on scans. Page: https://pdfinish.com/blog/how-to-convert-pdf-to-text Last updated: November 2, 2026 By PDFinish editorial team. Published November 2, 2026. Sometimes you do not want the whole PDF. You want the words. A clause for an email, a paragraph for your notes, a report you want to search in a plain text editor. This guide shows how to get the text out of a PDF with [PDF to Text](https://pdfinish.com/pdf-to-text), what comes out and what does not, and how to tell when a PDF has no text to take. That last point matters most. Some PDFs hold real text. Others hold only pictures of pages. The tool can only copy the first kind, and the guide says how to tell them apart. ## How do I convert a PDF to text? Open PDF to Text, add your PDF and press Extract text. The words from every page appear in a box in reading order. Press Copy text to put them on your clipboard, or Download to save a .txt file. The document is read in your browser and stays on your device. 1. Open [PDF to Text](https://pdfinish.com/pdf-to-text). 2. Drop the PDF onto the tool or choose it from your device. If the PDF has a password, unlock it first. 3. Decide about page breaks. Leave them out for clean text, or tick Mark where each page starts to put a line such as --- Page 2 --- before each page. 4. Press Extract text. 5. Read through the result. If some pages are scans, the result tells you which ones. 6. Press Copy text, or press Download to save a .txt file. ## Why does a page say it has no text? That page is a picture, such as a scan or a photo of a page. A picture holds no words to copy, so there is nothing for the tool to take out. It tells you which pages are pictures so you know the text is missing from those pages. A quick way to check before you start: open the PDF and try to select a single word with your mouse. If you can highlight individual words, the page has text. If the whole page highlights as one block, or nothing highlights, it is a picture. Reading words from a picture is a different job, called OCR, and PDF to Text does not do it. The [OCR PDF](https://pdfinish.com/ocr-pdf) page covers that job, and it lists what it supports and where it can go wrong. If you have a photo or a screenshot instead of a PDF, see [Image to Text](https://pdfinish.com/image-to-text). ## Will the text come out in the right order? For most documents, yes. Columns are read one after the other, left to right, and lines top to bottom, so the words come out in the order a person reads them. A heading across the top is read first. Tables are harder, and they can come out column by column. A table with wide gaps between its columns is the usual trouble. Instead of reading across a row, the tool may read down the first column and then the next. If a table matters, check it against the PDF and fix the order by hand in the text. ## What do I get, and what is left behind? You get plain text: the words, line breaks and blank lines between paragraphs. You do not get bold or italics, fonts, colors, pictures or the page layout. If you need those, keep the PDF itself and use the text only as a working copy. - Kept: the words, line breaks and the blank lines between paragraphs. - Optional: a line such as --- Page 2 --- before each page. - Not kept: bold, fonts, colors, pictures and layout. ## A worked example Say you rent out a unit and your tenant sends a six page lease as a PDF. You want the notice clause in your notes. You open PDF to Text, add the lease and tick Mark where each page starts. After Extract text, you see the whole lease in the box, with a line such as --- Page 4 --- above the notice clause. You copy the clause, paste it into your notes with the page number, and save the full text as a .txt file for searching later. If page 6 were a scanned signature page, the result would tell you so. The text from the other pages would still come out. ## Can I turn the text back into a PDF? Yes. Paste or add the text to [TXT to PDF](https://pdfinish.com/txt-to-pdf), choose a font, size and page size, and download a new PDF. The new file has your cleaned up words, not the original layout. It is useful when you have edited the text and want a tidy copy to send. ## Common problems and fixes - The result says a page has no text. That page is a picture. Try the selection test above, then see the OCR PDF page. - The tool will not open the file. A PDF with a password needs to be unlocked first. - Words from two columns are mixed together. Check the result against the PDF and fix it by hand. - A table comes out column by column. Copy the cells you need from the PDF, or rebuild the rows in the text. - You see page markers you do not want. Untick Mark where each page starts and run it again. - You wanted the pictures from a PDF. Text extraction takes the words only. ## Where does your file go? PDFs such as leases, contracts and reports often hold names, addresses and amounts. PDF to Text reads the words from your file in your browser, so the file is not sent to our servers. The text you copy goes to your clipboard, and the .txt file is saved to your device. ## A short checklist - Try selecting a word in the PDF to see if it has text. - Unlock the PDF first if it has a password. - Choose whether to mark page breaks. - Read the result for tables and scanned pages. - Keep the original PDF, since the text has no layout. 2 free uses in total, no account needed. Free files can be up to 50 MB, and Pro allows up to 500 MB. ## Sources - PDFinish's own [PDF to Text](https://pdfinish.com/pdf-to-text) page, for reading order, page markers, scanned pages and the plain text result, as of November 2026. - PDFinish's own [OCR PDF](https://pdfinish.com/ocr-pdf) page, for the selection test and what it supports, as of November 2026. ## Common questions ### How do I extract text from a PDF? Add the PDF to PDF to Text and press Extract text. The words of every page appear in a box, and you can copy them or download them as a .txt file. ### Why does it say a page has no text? That page is a picture, such as a scan or a photo of a page, so it holds no words to copy. The tool tells you which pages are pictures. Reading words from a picture is OCR, which PDF to Text does not do. ### Will the text come out in the right order? For most documents, yes. Columns are read one at a time and a heading across the top is read first. A table with wide gaps between its columns can come out column by column. ### Can I get the page breaks in the text? Yes. Tick Mark where each page starts and each page begins under a line such as --- Page 2 ---. Leave it off for clean text. ### Does converting a PDF to text keep bold and fonts? No. You get plain text: the words, line breaks and blank lines between paragraphs. If you need the layout, keep the PDF. ### Is my PDF uploaded when I convert it to text? No. The words are read from your file in your browser. The file is not sent to our servers. ## Try it - [PDF to Text](https://pdfinish.com/pdf-to-text): Pull the text out of a PDF in reading order, to copy or save as a .txt file. - [TXT to PDF](https://pdfinish.com/txt-to-pdf): Turn a plain text file, or text you paste, into a PDF. - [OCR PDF](https://pdfinish.com/ocr-pdf): Make scanned pages searchable and selectable. This article is general information, not legal or tax advice.