PDF to Text

A plain .txt file per PDF with the chosen pages' text in reading order - as paragraphs that reflow in an editor, or line by line as it sits on the page - with an optional heading or blank line between pages. Everything runs in your browser; the file is never uploaded.

Only if the scan has a text layer. A scan that has been through the OCR tool extracts like any other file - the invisible text is read. A scan without one has no text to give; the file list says so and points at OCR.

The text is read line by line, top to bottom, by where each line sits on the page. A page laid out in columns or boxes can interleave; switch the layout to Lines to see each line as it is, or narrow the pages.

Choose Lines: every line stays on its own row, with a space where the page leaves a gap, so a table's rows stay rows. Paragraphs mode is for prose - it joins the lines of a block and mends hyphenated breaks.

No - a .txt file holds characters and line breaks, nothing else: no fonts, no bold, no colours, no pictures, no columns. That is the point when you want to search, quote or feed the text to another program. If the document has to keep looking like a document, convert it to Word instead.

Seconds for most documents, though it depends on the file and on your computer - the work happens on your machine. The text is read as the file loads, so the word count in the list and the preview are ready before you press anything.