PDF to Text
Extract plain text from PDF documents instantly.
Drag & drop your file here
or click to browse files
Supports .pdf up to 500 MB · Files stay private
How It Works
Upload your PDF
Drag and drop your PDF file or click to browse. The file is loaded directly in your browser.
Choose your settings
Select which pages to extract and whether to preserve the original layout spacing.
Download your text file
Click "Extract Text" and download a .txt file containing all the extracted text content.
Why Use FreePDFApp?
- ✓Extract all selectable text from PDF documents into a plain .txt file
- ✓Choose to convert all pages or a specific page range
- ✓Optionally preserve the original layout spacing and column positions
- ✓Clean, readable output suitable for copy-pasting or further processing
- ✓Processed entirely in your browser — your files never leave your device
Frequently Asked Questions
This tool extracts selectable text embedded in the PDF. Scanned documents contain images, not text. Use an OCR tool first to convert scanned pages into selectable text, then extract.
Plain text does not support formatting like bold, italics, or fonts. Enable "Preserve layout spacing" to maintain approximate column and spacing positions from the original document.
Yes. Select "Specific pages" and enter page numbers or ranges such as "1, 3-5, 10". Only those pages will be included in the output.
The output is a standard UTF-8 encoded .txt file. It can be opened in any text editor, word processor, or programming environment.
Yes. Text extraction runs entirely in your browser using PDF.js. Your PDF is never uploaded to any server.
Related PDF Tools
PDF to Word
Convert your PDF to an editable Word document (.docx) without losing formatting.
PDF to Excel
Extract tables and data from PDF files into editable Excel spreadsheets.
Compress PDF
Reduce your PDF file size without losing quality.
Chat with PDF
Ask questions about your PDF and get instant AI-powered answers.