Step 1: Supply your PDF files using the button above or by haul and lay.
Step 2: Click the 'Convert' button to start the conversion.
Step 3: Get your converted TXT files.
PDF to TXT Conversion FAQ
What does the PDF to TXT converter do?
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It converts a PDF document into TXT. Text, paragraph styles, tables, and embedded images are preserved as closely as the target format allows.
Will the formatting of my PDF survive the conversion to TXT?
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Headings, paragraph styles, tables, and embedded images carry across. Advanced layout (text boxes, complex columns, macros) may simplify when TXT does not support the feature one-for-one.
Will the page layout of my PDF survive the TXT conversion?
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Block-level layout (headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, inline images) is reconstructed from the PDF's text and positioning. Highly designed PDFs with overlapping or rotated elements may flow differently in TXT, which is a fundamentally re-flowable format.
Will the TXT reflow properly on a phone or e-reader?
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That is the main thing you gain. A PDF has fixed pages, so a small screen either shrinks the whole page or forces horizontal scrolling. The TXT stores text as text, so the reader re-wraps it to any screen width and font size. Multi-column layouts and large tables are where reflow struggles — those are the parts worth checking after conversion. Plain text is the most durable format there is: it will still be readable when every proprietary format of this decade is unopenable.
What exactly survives when PDF becomes TXT?
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The words, and nothing else. TXT stores characters and line breaks, so bold, italics, headings, fonts, colours, tables, images, headers and footers are all discarded — not degraded, removed. That is the correct outcome when you want the text for indexing, diffing or scripting, and the wrong one if the formatting carried meaning. TXT carries no styling, no images, no tables and no page structure, so any layout in the source is discarded permanently.
Will the TXT be properly editable?
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Yes — that is the point of converting out of PDF. The output opens as a real document with live paragraphs, styles and tables rather than a frozen page image, so you can edit it directly instead of retyping. Heavily designed source layouts convert less cleanly than plain prose, so expect to tidy spacing on anything built on a complex grid.
What if the source is a scan with no real text in it?
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Then the conversion produces a picture of the text rather than the text itself, and searching it finds nothing. Run /pdf-ocr/ to add a recognised text layer first; optical character recognition turns the scanned pixels into selectable, searchable characters that the conversion can then carry through properly.
Is there a file-size limit when converting PDF to TXT?
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Free conversions have a size limit per file, set by the type of file, and the page tells you when a file is over it. A paid plan removes that limit, so much larger files can be converted.
Can I batch-convert several PDF files to TXT at once?
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Several files in one job need a paid plan. Free use is one file per conversion, one conversion an hour. On a paid plan you can add several files to one job, then download each result on its own or all of them in one ZIP.
What happens to my PDF files after the conversion?
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Uploaded files are processed on our own conversion servers, nobody looks at them, and they are not shared. The upload and the converted file are both deleted automatically about 24 hours after the conversion, which leaves time to download the result. See /privacy/ for the full policy.
Do I need to install software to convert PDF to TXT?
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No. The converter runs entirely in your browser plus our cloud — no plugin, no install, no admin rights. It works on Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, iOS, and Android.
Do I need an account to convert PDF to TXT?
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Yes. One conversion an hour is free, with no account needed, for a file within the free size limit. A paid plan removes the hourly limit and the size limit, and lets you add several files to one job.
