Convert PDF to TXT Online
Free, easy-to-use PDF to TXT converter. Extract text content from PDF documents quickly and securely.
PDF to TXT Converter
Convert your PDF files to TXT format quickly and easily. Upload your file and download the result.
Max file size: 50MB
Why Convert PDF to TXT?
Converting PDF files to TXT (plain text) format offers several practical advantages, particularly when you need to extract and work with the textual content of a document. PDF files are excellent for preserving formatting and layouts, but can be challenging when you just need to access, edit, or analyze the raw text.
Benefits of Converting PDF to TXT
- Easy text extraction - Pull out just the textual content from PDF documents
- Universal compatibility - TXT files can be opened on any device or platform
- Simple editing - Edit content easily in any text editor without formatting constraints
- Smaller file size - Drastically reduce file size by removing formatting and images
- Data analysis - Process text content programmatically or with text analysis tools
- Content repurposing - Easily reuse text in other documents or applications
About PDF and TXT Format Differences
| Feature | TXT | |
|---|---|---|
| Full Name | Portable Document Format | Plain Text |
| Formatting | Rich (fonts, colors, layouts) | None |
| Images/Graphics | Yes | No |
| File Size | Larger | Very small |
| Editability | Limited (special software needed) | Easy (any text editor) |
| Developer | Adobe | N/A (universal standard) |
PDF (Portable Document Format) was designed to present documents consistently across different platforms, preserving all formatting, fonts, and layouts. TXT files, on the other hand, contain only plain text with no formatting or styling. While this means losing all visual elements and formatting during conversion, it also makes the content highly accessible and editable on any device or platform without special software.
Other Document Conversion Options
Frequently Asked Questions
Will the converter work with scanned PDFs?
Our converter works best with PDFs that contain actual text data. For scanned PDFs (which are essentially images of text), our tool employs Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to attempt to extract the text. While OCR technology has improved significantly, the accuracy depends on the quality of the scan, text clarity, and layout complexity. For best results with scanned documents, ensure the scan is clear, has good contrast, and the text is horizontally aligned.
Will tables and complex layouts be preserved in the TXT file?
TXT files by nature don't support formatting, tables, or complex layouts. When converting from PDF to TXT, tables are typically converted to plain text with spaces or tabs attempting to maintain some alignment, but the visual structure will be lost. For complex documents with tables or multi-column layouts, some text order might be changed or spacing might not perfectly reflect the original layout. If preserving tables is critical, consider converting to formats like DOCX or HTML instead.
How can I handle special characters in the converted text?
Our PDF to TXT converter supports UTF-8 encoding, which handles most international characters and special symbols. However, some very specialized characters or symbols in the original PDF may not have direct text equivalents and might be replaced with substitute characters or omitted. If you notice character encoding issues in the output, you can try opening the TXT file in a text editor that allows you to change the encoding (like Notepad++ or Visual Studio Code) and experiment with different encoding options.