This tool pulls the text out of a PDF and hands it to you as an editable document. It uses PDF.js to read the text objects the file already contains — every character with its position on the page — and groups them back into lines by comparing their vertical coordinates. The result is written either as a Word-compatible .doc file or as plain .txt.
It is worth setting expectations precisely, because “PDF to Word” promises more than any converter can deliver. A PDF describes where each glyph sits on a page; it does not record that a run of text was a heading, a bullet list, a table cell or a two-column layout. Reconstructing that structure is guesswork, and this tool does not attempt it. What you get is the text, in reading order, as paragraphs — a clean starting point for rewriting rather than a faithful replica.
The text is extracted and the document assembled inside your browser. Nothing is uploaded, unlike the conversion services that require you to hand over the file.
.doc that Word, Google Docs and LibreOffice all open. Plain text produces a .txt with no formatting at all.| Element | Result |
|---|---|
| Body text | Extracted accurately, in reading order |
| Paragraph breaks | Reconstructed from line positions |
| Page breaks | Preserved |
| Headings and styles | Lost — everything becomes body text |
| Tables | Flattened into lines of text |
| Images and charts | Not included |
| Columns | Read in the file’s internal order, which may interleave |
A scanned document contains photographs of pages, not text objects. There is nothing for this tool to extract and it will report that no text was found. Use the OCR tool instead, which recognises the characters visually and produces a text file you can work from.
You can tell the difference in any PDF reader: try selecting a sentence with the mouse. If a text cursor appears and words highlight, this converter will work. If you only get a rectangular selection over the whole page, it is a scan.
Because a PDF stores glyph positions, not document structure. There is no record that something was a heading, a table or a bulleted list, so no converter can restore it reliably. This tool extracts the text faithfully and leaves the formatting to you.
Your file is almost certainly a scan — images of pages with no text layer. Use the OCR tool, which recognises the characters visually instead.
No. Table cells are just positioned text in a PDF, so they come out as ordinary lines. Complex tables usually need rebuilding by hand.
The .doc keeps paragraph and page breaks and opens in Word, Google Docs and LibreOffice. The .txt is pure text with no structure at all — useful for feeding into other software.
No. Only the text layer is extracted. If you need the pages as pictures, use PDF to JPG.
No. PDF.js reads the text in your browser and the output file is assembled locally before downloading.