Is this tool really free?

Yes, all our PDF tools are completely free to use with no hidden costs, subscriptions, or per-file charges. We support the service through non-intrusive advertising, not by charging for basic document operations. You can use any tool as many times as you like, with no daily limits, file size restrictions, or account requirements whatsoever.

Absolutely. All PDF processing happens directly in your browser using local JavaScript and WebAssembly libraries. Your files are never uploaded to any server, never stored in the cloud, and never transmitted over the internet. The files remain entirely on your device from start to finish, giving you complete control over your sensitive and confidential documents.

Does this work with scanned PDFs?

This tool extracts text from PDFs that have an embedded text layer — documents created from word processors, converted from digital sources, or previously processed with OCR. Scanned PDFs without a text layer consist entirely of images and contain no extractable text. For those documents, use the OCR tool to first create a searchable text layer, then use PDF to Text to extract it.

What format is the output?

Text is extracted as a plain text (.txt) file that any text editor, word processor, or programming environment can read. The extracted text preserves the reading order of content on each page but does not preserve visual formatting like bold, italic, font sizes, or colors. Line breaks correspond roughly to paragraph boundaries in the original document.

Will all text be extracted, including headers and footers?

Yes, all text in the PDF's text layer is extracted, including headers, footers, page numbers, captions, footnotes, sidebar text, and any other text content. The extraction captures text from every layer and every position on each page. If you only want the main body text without peripheral elements, you may need to edit the extracted text file to remove unwanted sections.

Can I extract text from a specific page range?

Yes, you can specify which pages to extract text from by entering a page range. This is useful for long documents where you only need content from a specific chapter or section. Specifying a range also speeds up processing for large documents, as only the selected pages need to be parsed rather than the entire document.

What encoding is the output text file?

The extracted text is saved as UTF-8 encoded plain text, which supports all characters from all writing systems including Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and others. UTF-8 is universally compatible with modern text editors, word processors, and programming tools. If you see garbled characters, ensure your text editor is configured to open files as UTF-8.

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