How to copy or extract text from a PDF

2 min read·25 July 2026

Copying text from a PDF is sometimes easy — and sometimes not at all. It depends on the type of PDF. With PDFrust's pdf2text tool you extract all text from a PDF to a text file you can paste anywhere.

Two types of PDFs

A 'searchable PDF' has a real text layer: you can move the cursor over the text, select it, and copy it. An 'image PDF' (e.g. a scan) contains only pixels: there is no selectable text. To copy text from a scan you first need OCR.

Extract text with pdf2text

Open the pdf2text tool on PDFrust. Upload your PDF. PDFrust extracts all text content (paragraphs, tables, headings) and offers it as a downloadable text file. You can then paste the text into Word, Notepad, or any other program.

PDF to text

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Preserve formatting?

The pdf2text tool extracts plain text without formatting. Want to keep the formatting (headings, bold, italic)? Try: open the PDF in Google Chrome → Print → 'Save as PDF' via Google Docs: import the PDF into Google Docs (File → Open), which attempts to interpret the formatting.

Scan to text

Is your PDF a scan? First use the OCR tool to add a text layer. Then you can open the searchable PDF and select text, or use the pdf2text tool to extract everything.