When Do You Need Plain Text from a PDF?
Converting a PDF to TXT strips away everything except the raw text content. This is useful in more situations than you might expect:
- 1.Data entry and spreadsheets. When you need to pull text from invoices, receipts, or forms into a database or spreadsheet, TXT gives you clean data without formatting clutter.
- 2.Coding and development. Developers often need to extract text from documentation, API specs, or log files saved as PDFs. Plain text is the easiest format to parse programmatically.
- 3.Note-taking and research. Copying text from a PDF into notes apps (Notion, Google Keep, Apple Notes) works much better with clean TXT than with copy-pasted PDF content that carries hidden formatting.
- 4.Accessibility. Plain text works with every screen reader and assistive technology. Converting academic papers or reports to TXT makes them accessible to everyone.
- 5.Text analysis. Running word counts, searching for keywords, or feeding content into AI tools is simpler with plain text files.
How to Convert PDF to TXT (Step by Step)
Upload your PDF
Go to the PDF to TXT tool and drag your file into the upload area, or click to browse. Files up to 25MB are free — Pro users can upload up to 200MB.
Convert to plain text
Click Convert. OmnisPDF reads all selectable text in your PDF and generates a clean .txt file. This takes just a few seconds for most documents.
Download and use your text
Download the TXT file and open it in any text editor, paste it into your notes, or use it in your workflow. The text is clean and ready to use immediately.
What Gets Lost When You Convert PDF to TXT
TXT is the simplest file format — it holds only characters and line breaks. When you convert a PDF to TXT, here's what is intentionally removed:
- ✗ All formatting — bold, italics, underlines, font sizes, and colors disappear.
- ✗ Images and graphics — photos, charts, logos, and diagrams are removed. Use Extract Images if you need those separately.
- ✗ Tables and layout — table structures collapse into plain text lines. Column alignment is lost.
- ✗ Headers and footers — page numbers, running headers, and footers may appear inline with the main text.
- ✗ Hyperlinks — clickable links become plain text (the URL text stays, but it's no longer clickable).
If you need to keep formatting, consider using PDF to Word instead — it preserves layout, tables, and styling in an editable document.
PDF to TXT vs PDF to Word: Which Should You Use?
| Feature | PDF to TXT | PDF to Word |
|---|---|---|
| Output | Plain text only | Formatted .docx document |
| Keeps formatting | No | Yes (bold, tables, images) |
| Best for | Data extraction, coding, notes | Editing documents, reports |
| File size | Tiny (KB) | Larger (preserves media) |
| Tier | Free | Pro |
When PDF to TXT Won't Work (And What to Do Instead)
PDF to TXT extracts selectable text — text you can highlight and copy in a PDF viewer. It does not work on:
Scanned PDFs
If your PDF is a scan (photos of paper pages), there's no selectable text to extract. You need OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to read the text from the images. OmnisPDF's OCR Scanner handles this automatically.
Password-Protected PDFs
Some PDFs restrict text copying. If your PDF is protected, use Unlock PDF first (you'll need the password), then convert to TXT.
PDFs with Custom Fonts
Some PDFs use encoded or custom fonts that produce garbled text when extracted. If your output looks like gibberish, try PDF to Word which handles font encoding differently, or use OCR as a fallback.