Extract PDF Text
Pull the text layer out of a PDF and paste it into anything — a spreadsheet, an email, a search box. Works on documents produced by scanners that also stored a recognised text layer, and shows you when a page has none.
Turn this off to collapse the text into a single flow.
How extract pdf text works
- Upload the PDFFurtu loads the PDF engine and inspects the text layer on every page.
- Choose how to format itKeep page markers to see where each page ended, and keep line breaks if you are reflowing the text.
- Copy or download the textThe result appears in an editable box you can select from, plus a plain-text download.
What you get
Copy the readable text out of a PDF you cannot select from. Everything happens inside this page: the file is read by your browser, transformed in memory and handed straight back to you as a download. There is no upload queue, no waiting for a server, and nothing left behind when you close the tab.
Supported formats
Furtu accepts .pdf files up to 500 MB each — one file at a time.
- Every file is checked against its real file signature, not just its name, so a renamed or corrupt file is rejected with an explanation instead of failing halfway through.
- Files over the limit are refused up front rather than after a long wait.
Limitations, stated up front
- Furtu reads an existing text layer. It does not run OCR, so image-only scans return no text.
- Complex multi-column and table layouts may interleave. Simple reading-order text extracts cleanly.
Frequently asked questions
Will this work on a scanned PDF?
Only if the scan includes a text layer, which is what OCR software adds. Furtu reads that text layer, which is why it is fast and lossless. A scan with no text layer has nothing to extract — for those you need optical character recognition, which Furtu does not do.
How do I know if my PDF has a text layer?
Open it and try to select text with your mouse. If you can highlight words, there is a text layer. If the selection grabs a whole block or nothing, the pages are images.
Why is some of the output jumbled?
PDFs store text as positioned glyphs, not as paragraphs. Multi-column layouts and tables can come out interleaved. Turn off line-break preservation to get a cleaner single flow, or copy page by page.
Is the text I pull out sent anywhere?
No, and that matters here more than it does for other tools, because extracted text is often the sensitive part of a contract or a medical record. Parsing happens in your browser, the contents stay on your device, and the result goes into a box on this page and a file on your disk. Furtu keeps nothing, so closing the tab discards it. Pasting it into another service is a separate decision, made there and on their terms.