Does it keep columns, tables or formatting?

No. You get plain UTF-8 text, line by line as stored in the PDF. Tables become ordinary lines, and fonts and images are dropped.

Why does it say there is no text when my PDF has a few words?

If the whole document has fewer than about 40 characters of real text, it is treated as a scan and no file is produced.

Is there a page limit?

Yes, 200 pages. Split a bigger file first.

Tools ›

PDF to text (.txt)

Pull the text layer of every page into one plain text file, with page markers.

Open PDF to text →Free · no sign-up · your file never leaves your browser

When you'd use it

Pasting a long PDF report into a translation tool that only accepts plain text.
Getting the wording of a PDF contract into a notes app so you can quote clauses.
Feeding a PDF's text into a script or word counter that can't open PDFs.

Just say what you need

There are no menus to learn. Drop your file on pdfagents.ai and type it the way you would say it:

“give me just the text”
“extract the text”
“pdf to txt”

How it works

Drop the PDF.
The text is read page by page.
Download the .txt file.

Scanned PDFs have no text layer; run OCR first.

Questions

Does it keep columns, tables or formatting?: No. You get plain UTF-8 text, line by line as stored in the PDF. Tables become ordinary lines, and fonts and images are dropped.
Why does it say there is no text when my PDF has a few words?: If the whole document has fewer than about 40 characters of real text, it is treated as a scan and no file is produced.
Is there a page limit?: Yes, 200 pages. Split a bigger file first.

Guides

Private, and it keeps going

Your document is opened and saved on your own device, never uploaded. When the result is ready, type the next request (rotate, compress, add a password) and it applies to the result.

PDF to text, right now

The text of every page as a .txt file.

Open PDF to text →

Doing this often? The free Mac app runs this agent on whole folders, offline, with no page limit. See the Mac app →