PDF to Text and Markdown
Copy the text out of a PDF as plain text or as Markdown with headings and lists. Choose the pages, drop repeated headers and page numbers, and download one file. It all happens in your browser, so your PDF never leaves your device.
- Free
- Unlimited
- No signup
- No watermark
- Files never leave your device
or drop it here
Text options
File name
How to convert a PDF to text or Markdown
- Drop your PDF. If it is password-protected, type the password.
- Choose Markdown or plain text, and whether you want all pages or only some.
- Click Convert and download the .md or .txt file.
Questions
What is kept in Markdown?
Paragraphs, headings (found from the larger text size) and bullet or numbered lists. Bold, italics, links, images and tables are not kept. Tables come out as lines of text.
Why does my PDF give no text?
Scanned PDFs and PDFs made from photos contain pictures of text, not text, so there is nothing to extract. Text recognition (OCR) is not part of this tool yet.
Why are some words stuck together or in a strange order?
PDFs store text as pieces placed on the page, with no real paragraphs. PDFboat rebuilds lines and paragraphs from their positions, which works well for normal documents but can slip on complex layouts. Try "Keep the PDF's line breaks" if a paragraph is joined wrongly.
Can it remove page numbers and headers?
Yes, and it does by default for PDFs with three or more pages: lines that repeat at the top or bottom of most pages are left out. Switch it off if something you need goes missing.
Does it work for other languages?
Yes, any text the PDF stores as text comes out as UTF-8. Right-to-left scripts and PDFs with broken font maps can come out in the wrong order or with odd characters.
Is my file uploaded?
No. The text is read inside your browser tab and the file is made there. Nothing leaves your device.