PDF to text

Sometimes the words are the point, not the page

When you want to search a hundred pages, move a paragraph into an email, or pass the content to another tool, the layout is a burden rather than a help.

Extract the textA plain text file

Plain text takes the words and leaves everything else: fonts, colours, positions and images. The content remains on its own, light and searchable in any editor.

What drops away

Tables lose their grid and become consecutive lines. Columns may interleave. Images have nowhere to go. That is not a flaw in the conversion but the definition of the format.

When it is the right choice

When the text is working material: searching, quoting, analysing, or moving it into another system. When you want to keep the look, the answer is Word, not plain text.

Scans again

A scanned page is an image, with no text underneath to extract. It is the first thing people ask about, and the answer does not change with the format.