Extract text
How to copy text from a PDF
By DeckleUpdated
To copy text from a PDF, open it in your browser or PDF viewer, drag across the words, copy them with Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on a Mac) and paste them where you need them. That is the quickest way for a sentence or a paragraph. For several pages or the whole document, use PDF to text instead: choose the PDF, choose Extract text, and you get every page's text in one TXT file without selecting anything by hand.
Pages become plain text
Selected PDF pages
Order chosen in the review
UTF-8 text
Words without page formatting
Page boundary: U+000C or a blank line
How to copy text from a PDF by selecting it
- Open the PDF in a browser, Preview, Acrobat Reader or your usual viewer.
- Choose the text selection tool if the viewer has one. In most viewers the pointer becomes a text cursor over words.
- Drag from the first word to the last word you want. Hold Shift and click to extend a selection across a page break.
- Copy with Ctrl+C on Windows or Cmd+C on a Mac.
- Paste into your document or email. Paste as plain text to drop the PDF's fonts: Ctrl+Shift+V in Google Docs and many other apps, or Option-Shift-Command-V (Paste and Match Style) on a Mac.
- Read the pasted text once, checking line breaks and any hyphenated words.
If nothing highlights when you drag, the page is an image and there is no text to copy. See why a PDF to text file is empty for what to do.
How to copy all the text from a PDF
Selecting a long document by hand is slow and easy to get wrong. PDF to text exports everything at once.
- Open PDF to text and choose your PDF, or drop it onto the page.
- Keep All pages, or choose Choose pages and type the pages you want, such as
3-9. - Under Between pages, choose One continuous document if you will paste the text into a document, or Mark where each page ended to keep page markers.
- Choose Extract text.
- Choose Copy text on the result screen, or download the TXT file, open it, select all and copy. Copy text appears when the whole text fits in the preview; for longer files the preview shows the start and you download the rest.
The result screen says how many pages were read for their text and how much of the PDF's selectable text made it into the file.
Copy and paste or export: which to use
| Situation | Better choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| One quote or a paragraph | Copy and paste | Fastest, no download |
| A table you want to rebuild | Copy and paste, a row at a time | You control what is selected |
| Five pages or more | PDF to text | No manual selection, nothing missed |
| The whole document for search or analysis | PDF to text | One file, in page order |
| Pages in a different order | PDF to text with Choose pages | Type the order, such as 10, 1-9 |
| Text you need to cite by page | PDF to text with page markers | A page-break character between pages |
| Two-column layout | Either; check the order | Both follow how the PDF stores the text |
Common copy and paste problems
Line breaks in the middle of sentences. Each line on the PDF page is a separate line of text, so pasted paragraphs have breaks where the page wrapped. In Word or Google Docs, replace single line breaks with spaces, or paste into a plain text editor first and join the lines there.
Hyphenated words. Words split across lines on the page keep the hyphen when copied: "docu-" and "ment". Search for a hyphen followed by a line break and remove both.
Columns mixed together. A selection across two columns may pick up lines from both. Select one column at a time, or see why extracted PDF text is in the wrong order.
Symbols instead of letters. If what you paste is nonsense but the page looks fine, the PDF's fonts do not map their shapes to letters. Why extracted PDF text shows garbled characters explains the fixes.
Copying is blocked. Some PDFs are set to restrict copying. If the PDF opens with a password, you can remove the protection with Unlock PDF when you know the password.
Tips
- Paste as plain text. It removes the PDF's fonts and sizes, so the text takes on your document's style.
- Check numbers after pasting. Tables and financial figures are where a missed or extra character matters most.
- Use the export for anything you will search later. One TXT file of the whole document is easier to search than many pasted fragments.
- Keep page markers for long documents. They let you find where a passage came from.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't I copy text from my PDF?
Either the page is a scanned image with no text, or the PDF restricts copying. Scans need OCR; a password-protected file needs unlocking with the password first.
How do I copy text from a PDF without line breaks?
Paste into a text editor and replace single line breaks with spaces, keeping double breaks as paragraph ends. Exporting with One continuous document gives the same line structure, so the same clean-up applies.
Can I copy a table from a PDF?
You can copy its values, but not the grid. Each row comes out as values separated by spaces. Paste into a spreadsheet and split the columns, then check the result against the PDF.
Is copying from a PDF the same as exporting?
Both read the same text layer. Copying takes what you select; exporting takes every chosen page in order.
Related tools
- PDF to text to export all the text at once
- Unlock PDF to remove a password you know
- Split PDF to keep only the pages you need as a PDF