# Extract Text from PDF

> Extract all text content from PDF documents into plain text or structured format. Keep the original. This tool downloads a clean copy alongside it.

Live tool: https://lofttools.com/tools/pdf-tools/extract-pdf-text

Category: PDF & Documents

## How it works

1. **Select PDF** — Drop the PDF you want text out of, or click to choose a file
2. **Extract text** — Text is automatically extracted from all pages
3. **Copy or download** — Copy extracted text to clipboard or download as a TXT file

## FAQ

### Can it extract text from scanned PDFs?

For scanned PDFs, use our PDF OCR tool which uses optical character recognition to read text from images.

### Does this preserve bookmarks and form fields?

The PDF is read-only here — text is extracted, the source file and its structure stay exactly as you opened them.

### What PDF versions are supported?

Text extraction works on PDF 1.0 through 2.0. Tagged PDFs (1.4+) extract with proper reading order; older files use the position of each text run on the page to determine order.

## Privacy

This tool runs entirely in the browser. Files are not uploaded to a server. They never leave the user's device.

## More

- All tools: https://lofttools.com/tools
- Category: https://lofttools.com/tools/pdf-tools
- LLM index: https://lofttools.com/llms.txt