What is PDF to text?
PDF to text reads the text layer of a PDF with pdf.js and rebuilds it in reading order: words are grouped into lines, lines into paragraphs, and words split across a line break with a hyphen are joined again. Choose Markdown and the tool also turns larger text into # headings using a font-size heuristic, and bullet and numbered lists into Markdown lists – handy for notes apps, wikis, static sites and AI chat tools that work best with clean Markdown.
When to use it
- Copy the text of a report, contract or research paper without fighting the PDF selection.
- Turn a PDF handout into Markdown notes for Notion, Obsidian or a GitHub README.
- Paste a long PDF into a search, translation or AI tool as clean text.
- Get the word count of a PDF by extracting its text into the Word counter.
Tips for the best result
- Use a page range to extract only the chapter or section you need.
- Turn off Mark page breaks if you want one continuous text with no page markers.
- Headings are guessed from font size, so check the Markdown and adjust levels where needed.
Limits and privacy
Only PDFs with a real text layer can be converted. Scanned PDFs and photos of documents are images, so they need OCR (text recognition), which this tool does not do; it warns you when pages have no text. Tables come out as lines of text, and complex multi-column layouts may need tidying. Password-protected PDFs must be unlocked first. Processing happens entirely in your browser, so your data never leaves your device and there is nothing to sign up for. Files are processed in your browser and never uploaded.
Related tasks
Many people who use PDF to text also need PDF to JPG or Word counter, and Extract PDF pages is one click away. Every MondayKit tool works the same way – open the page, add your input, get the result – with no account, no watermark and no upload.