How to Copy Text From a PDF (and What to Do When You Can't)
You need a few paragraphs from a PDF for an email, an essay or a spreadsheet. Sometimes copying works perfectly. Other times the cursor will not select anything, or the text comes out as a mess. This guide explains both cases.
Method 1: copy directly from your PDF viewer
For a short passage this is the fastest way. Open the PDF in your browser or PDF reader, drag your mouse across the text so it is highlighted, then press Ctrl + C (Cmd + C on a Mac) and paste it where you need it.
Method 2: extract all the text into a TXT file
If you want the text of the whole document, or many pages, use the extraction tool:
- Open the PDF to Text tool.
- Choose your PDF file.
- Press PDF to Text. The text is read page by page.
- Download the TXT file, or check the preview shown on the page.
For documents with several pages, the file marks each page with a line such as --- Page 2 --- so you can find your place.
Why can't I select any text?
The most common reason is that the PDF is a scan. A scanned PDF is a photograph of a page. To your computer it contains pictures, not letters, so there is nothing to select. Our guide to scanned and normal PDFs shows how to tell the difference in a few seconds.
Our PDF to Text tool reads text that is already inside the PDF. It cannot read text from pictures. For scanned files you need OCR (optical character recognition), which many office apps and cloud services offer. Results vary with scan quality, and some services upload your file, so avoid them for sensitive documents.
Why does the copied text look wrong?
- Columns get mixed. PDFs do not store reading order the way a word processor does. Text from two columns can come out line by line across both. Copy one column at a time.
- Tables lose their shape. Cells become separate lines or run together. Paste into a spreadsheet and tidy it up.
- Strange symbols appear. Some PDFs use special fonts that do not map to normal letters. This is a limit of the file, and a visual copy (an image of the page) may be your only option.
- Line breaks in the middle of sentences. PDFs end each line where the page ends. Remove the extra line breaks after pasting.
A picture of the page as a backup
If you only need the look of a page and not the text, convert it to an image with PDF to JPG. You can then paste or share the picture.
Is it safe?
Yes. Text is extracted in your own browser, and your PDF is not uploaded to our servers.