Copy the text out of a PDF

Selecting text in a PDF on a phone is fiddly, and long documents copy badly. This tool reads the text of every page at once so you can copy it in one tap or save it as a plain text file.

Choose file

Your PDF is processed on this device and never uploaded. We don't see, store or log your files.

How it works

Tap Choose file and pick your PDF.
Tap Get text.
Copy the text from the box, or download it as a .txt file.

Why use this tool

Your PDF stays on your device, which matters for contracts, reports and coursework. The text comes out plain, without fonts or layout, ready to paste into an email, a message or a document. Free, no sign-up.

What text can be read

PDFs made from Word, Google Docs, websites or most apps contain real text, and all of it comes out, in any language. Scanned pages and photos saved as PDF contain only images of text: those need OCR, which this tool doesn't do, and it tells you when it found no text. Tables come out as lines of text, without columns. Arabic and Urdu text depends on how the PDF was made: files exported from Word usually come out correctly, but some PDFs, including many made with InPage, store letters in a form that can't be read back as text.

Using the .txt file

The download is a UTF-8 text file with each page separated by a blank line. It opens in Notepad, TextEdit and every phone, and a 100-page report usually comes to well under 1 MB.

Frequently asked questions

Why did it find no text?

The PDF is probably scanned: its pages are pictures of text. Reading those needs OCR.

Does it keep the formatting?

No. You get plain text without fonts, colours or layout. To keep the look of a page, convert it to an image with PDF to JPG.

Can it read Urdu or Arabic PDFs?

Yes when the PDF contains real Unicode text, as files exported from Word do. PDFs made with InPage often don't, and then the text comes out garbled or empty.

Is my PDF uploaded?

No. Everything happens in your browser on your own device.

Last reviewed: October 1, 2026