Frequently asked questions
Is this PDF to text converter really free?
Yes. There is no account, no trial, no watermark, and no page limit. The informational pages may show ads, which is what keeps the tool free.
Is it safe to convert confidential documents?
Your file is never uploaded. All processing happens inside your browser on your own device, which you can confirm in your browser’s network inspector. When you close the tab, nothing remains anywhere.
Why did my PDF produce no text?
It is almost certainly a scanned PDF — an image of a page rather than digital text. When that happens the tool offers a one-click OCR (optical character recognition) step. OCR also runs entirely in your browser: the engine (about 6 MB) is downloaded once from this site itself, never from a third party, and your file still goes nowhere.
Does it work with password-protected PDFs?
Not directly. Remove the password first (any PDF viewer that can open the file can usually re-save it without one), then convert.
Is there a file size limit?
No hard limit. Because the work happens on your device, very large PDFs are limited only by your browser’s memory — documents of several hundred pages convert fine on a typical laptop.
Does the layout — columns, tables — survive conversion?
Two modes are available. The default reconstructs natural reading order, which suits articles, contracts, and reports. Ticking “Preserve layout” instead maps text to a character grid so columns and simple tables stay visually aligned with spaces, like classic pdftotext -layout output.
Can I use it offline?
Once the page has loaded, yes — conversion needs no connection at all. The only exception is the very first OCR run, which fetches the OCR engine from this site; after that, OCR works offline too for the rest of the session.
What browsers are supported?
Any modern browser: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, on desktop or mobile.