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Extract text

How to get text from a PDF into Word or Google Docs

By DeckleUpdated

To get text from a PDF into Word or Google Docs, extract it with PDF to text, choosing One continuous document, then open the TXT file and paste the text into your document. You get every word from the selected pages, ready to edit, without the PDF's layout. Deckle does not convert PDFs to Word files, so headings, tables and images have to be rebuilt in your document. Your PDF is not changed.

PDF to text

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

Conceptual illustration · page separators retain boundaries, not columns, fonts or table geometry.

How to move PDF text into Word or Google Docs

  1. Open PDF to text and choose your PDF, or drop it onto the page.
  2. Under Pages and order, keep All pages, or choose Choose pages and type only the pages you want to edit, such as 2-6.
  3. Under Between pages, choose One continuous document. A blank line between pages pastes more cleanly than a page-break character.
  4. Choose Extract text.
  5. On the result screen, choose Copy text. For a long document, where the preview shows only the start, choose Download text, open the file in a text editor, select all and copy.
  6. In Word or Google Docs, paste as plain text: in Word use Keep Text Only from the paste options; in Google Docs use Ctrl+Shift+V (Cmd+Shift+V on a Mac).
  7. Tidy the text as described below, then apply your document's own heading and body styles.

What to tidy after pasting

A TXT file keeps each line as it appeared on the PDF page, so a pasted paragraph is broken into short lines. Three clean-ups cover most documents:

Problem Fix in Word Fix in Google Docs
A line break at the end of every line In Find and Replace, the Special menu inserts the paragraph mark code ^p. Replace ^p^p with a placeholder, then ^p with a space, then the placeholder with ^p Join the lines in a text editor before pasting, or join paragraphs by hand
Hyphenated words split across lines Search for -^p and replace with nothing Fix them in the text editor before pasting
Headers, footers and page numbers repeated Find and replace the repeated line with nothing The same, with Find and replace

Example: a 6-page policy document pasted into Word has about 240 short lines. Replacing single line breaks while keeping double breaks turns it back into 30 paragraphs in under a minute. Then select each heading and apply Heading 1 or Heading 2.

What does not come across

Plain text holds characters and line breaks, nothing else. These need rebuilding in your document:

  • Headings and styles. They arrive as ordinary lines. Apply styles yourself.
  • Tables. Each row arrives as values separated by spaces. In Word, select the rows and choose Insert > Table > Convert Text to Table, then pick the separator; in Google Docs, paste into a spreadsheet first, split the columns and copy the table back.
  • Images and charts. Not included. Save a page as an image with PDF to PNG and insert it.
  • Columns. Text from a two-column page comes out in the order the PDF stores it. Check the order before editing; see why extracted text is in the wrong order.
  • Links. The link text stays; the address does not.

For a short, text-heavy document this is quick work. For a heavily designed brochure, asking for the source file is usually faster.

Other ways to get a PDF into Word or Google Docs

  • Open the PDF in Word. Word makes an editable copy of the PDF and leaves the PDF itself unchanged. Microsoft says this works best with files that are mostly text, and the result may not look exactly like the PDF; tables, footnotes and font effects are among the parts that convert poorly.
  • Open the PDF with Google Docs. In Google Drive, right-click the PDF and choose Open with and then Google Docs. Drive converts PDFs and photos to text, but Google says the file should be 2 MB or smaller, and lists, tables and columns are not likely to be detected. The PDF has to be uploaded to your Drive first.
  • Ask for the original. If someone sent you a PDF made from a Word or Google Docs file, the source keeps every style and table.

Tips

  • Extract only the pages you will edit. A shorter paste means less tidying.
  • Paste as plain text every time. It stops stray fonts and sizes from the PDF entering your document.
  • Check numbers in tables. A missing cell shifts the values after it.
  • Keep the PDF open beside the document while you rebuild headings and tables.

Frequently asked questions

Can Deckle convert a PDF to Word?

No. Deckle exports the PDF's text as a TXT file, which you can paste into Word. It does not create DOCX files.

Why does my pasted PDF text have line breaks everywhere?

Each line on the PDF page becomes a line in the text. Replace single line breaks with spaces and keep double breaks as paragraph ends.

Can I get text from a scanned PDF into Google Docs?

PDF to text needs selectable text, so a scan must be made searchable with OCR first. Google Drive's Open with Google Docs can also convert a scanned PDF of 2 MB or less to text.

Will the fonts match the PDF?

No. Plain text carries no fonts. The pasted text takes your document's style, which is usually what you want.

Related tools

  • PDF to text to export the PDF's words as a TXT file
  • PDF to PNG to save charts and images as pictures to insert
  • Split PDF to keep only the section you need

Sources