PDF to text

Extract text from any PDF, scanned or digital

In-browser OCR reads image-only and scanned PDFs without uploading your file. Get clean, AI-ready Markdown or copy the text directly. Free, no signup.

✦ Works on scanned PDFs ✦ File stays on your device ✦ Free · no signup
⌖

Reads scanned PDFs

A scanned PDF is just photos of pages. There is no selectable text. OCR runs in your browser and reads those images, giving you the words back.

⌘

Private by design

Everything runs inside your browser, including the OCR. Your PDF never leaves your device, so there is nothing to worry about with confidential documents.

✦

Clean Markdown output

You get Markdown, not a Word file. Headings stay headings, tables come out as table syntax, and the text feeds cleanly into any AI tool or knowledge base.

Why Markdown, not Word

Text an AI can actually read

When you open a converted Word file in an AI tool, the invisible formatting (styles, revision marks, XML wrappers) goes in with the text. The model has to fight through the noise.

Markdown is just text. A heading is ## Heading, a table is table syntax, bold is **bold**. No hidden structure, no format drift. Exactly what language models, RAG pipelines, and note apps like Obsidian expect.

WORD FILE NOISE

<w:p w:rsidR="00A74B22">
  <w:pPr><w:pStyle w:val="Heading1"/></w:pPr>
  <w:r><w:t>Introduction</w:t></w:r>
</w:p>

MARKDOWN — CLEAN

## Introduction

The quick brown fox jumps...

Three simple steps

Extract in 3 steps

01

Drop your PDF

Drag it in or click to choose. It opens right here, nothing is uploaded to a server.

02

Text is extracted automatically

Digital PDFs are read directly. Scanned or image-only pages go through in-browser OCR, with no waiting on an upload.

03

Copy or download

Copy the text from the preview, or download a clean Markdown file ready for AI tools, note apps, or any text editor.

How it compares

How it compares.

Several tools extract text from PDFs. Here is an honest look at where each one fits, and where we are genuinely different.

How it compares.
pdfmarkdown.appTHIS TOOL Adobe Acrobat iLovePDF Smallpdf
Free, no signup Yes No paid subscription Limited daily page limit Limited daily limit
File stays on your device Yes in-browser OCR Limited desktop app option No uploaded to server No uploaded to server
Reads scanned / image PDFs (OCR) Yes Yes Yes Yes
Outputs Markdown (AI-ready) Yes No Word / PDF only No Word / TXT only No Word / TXT only
Tables come out as table syntax Yes No Word table format No Word table format No Word table format
No page or file-count limits Yes Limited No No

Adobe Acrobat, iLovePDF and Smallpdf all handle scanned PDFs well. The differences that matter: we run entirely in your browser (no upload, no account), and we output Markdown instead of Word or plain text, which makes the result directly usable in AI tools and knowledge bases. Last checked June 2026.

Frequently asked questions

How do I extract text from a scanned PDF? +

Drop the PDF on this page (or click to choose a file). The tool runs OCR on scanned and image-only pages right in your browser. Nothing is uploaded. When it is done, copy the text directly or download it as a Markdown file.

What is OCR and why do I need it for some PDFs? +

OCR (optical character recognition) reads text from an image. A scanned PDF stores each page as a photograph, so there is no selectable text. A normal copy-paste gives you nothing. OCR looks at the image and recovers the words. This tool runs OCR on those pages automatically, so you get the full text out regardless of how the PDF was made.

What format do I get the text in? +

You get Markdown, a plain-text format that keeps headings, bold, tables and lists without any of the formatting noise that Word files carry. Markdown feeds directly into AI tools, note apps like Obsidian, and any text editor. If you only need the words, you can copy and paste from the preview panel.

Why Markdown instead of Word? +

Word files carry invisible formatting that confuses language models and RAG pipelines. Markdown is clean, unambiguous plain text that AI tools read correctly: headings are headings, not styled paragraphs, and tables come out as actual table syntax. If you are feeding the content into an LLM or a knowledge base, Markdown is the better choice.

Does my file get uploaded to a server? +

No. Everything runs inside your browser on your own device, including the OCR. Your PDF is never sent to a server. This is how we can offer it for free with no signup: there is no server-side processing to pay for.

Does it work on image-only PDFs? +

Yes. That is the main reason to use it. A PDF that is just photos of pages (like one you scanned on a printer or received by fax) has no selectable text at all. The OCR here reads those image pages and gives you the text back.

How accurate is the OCR? +

For clean, well-lit scans the accuracy is high, comparable to desktop OCR tools. Latin scripts and CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) are all supported. Accuracy drops on low-resolution scans, handwriting or dense math. The converted output shows you every page so you can check.

Can it understand figures and diagrams, not just text? +

The current tool reads text from scanned pages. We also have a beta of an in-browser visual model (VLM) that describes charts, diagrams and figures alongside the text, so the full document is readable by AI. Interested? Join the beta.

Is it free? +

Yes. Extracting text from your PDF is completely free, with no account, signup, credits or page limits.

Try it now

Get the text out of your PDF.

In your browser. OCR included. Free, no signup, your file stays private.

Need to extract the figures instead? Extract images from PDF →