# Extract Text from PDF

> Extract all text content from PDF documents into plain text or structured format. Keep the original. This tool downloads a clean copy alongside it.

Live tool: https://lofttools.com/tools/pdf-tools/extract-pdf-text

Category: PDF & Documents

## How it works

1. **Select PDF** — Drop the PDF you want text out of, or click to choose a file
2. **Extract text** — Text is automatically extracted from all pages
3. **Copy or download** — Copy extracted text to clipboard or download as a TXT file

## FAQ

### Can it extract text from scanned PDFs?

For scanned PDFs, use our PDF OCR tool which uses optical character recognition to read text from images.

### Does this preserve bookmarks and form fields?

The PDF is read-only here — text is extracted, the source file and its structure stay exactly as you opened them.

### What PDF versions are supported?

Text extraction works on PDF 1.0 through 2.0. Tagged PDFs (1.4+) extract with proper reading order; older files use the position of each text run on the page to determine order.

## Privacy — what we do not do

This tool runs entirely in the browser via WebAssembly. Your file never reaches a Loft Tools server. Specifically:

- **No upload.** The file bytes load into the browser tab's memory and process on your own CPU. Open DevTools → Network and observe zero outbound requests carrying file data while Extract Text from PDF runs.
- **No AI training on your file.** Loft does not train models. We could not train on a file we cannot see.
- **No content scanning.** No virus, copyright, or content-moderation pass against your file. The bytes are not accessible to us.
- **No server-side log of file contents, filenames, or EXIF metadata.** Cloudflare edge captures URL and truncated IP for abuse defense (standard CDN behaviour). Cloudflare Web Analytics records anonymous page hits, no cookies, no PII. Nothing about your file content reaches any log.
- **No retention.** Close the tab and the file leaves browser memory. No backups exist on our side because no copy ever existed on our side.
- **No account.** No email, no signup, no auth, no telemetry tied to you.
- **Offline-capable after first visit** (PWA). Once you've loaded a tool, it caches; later sessions work without internet. For high-sensitivity files, run the tool once online to warm the cache, then disconnect before processing.

Compare with upload-based services: each transmits your file to a processing server. Even over HTTPS, each has logs, retention windows, and subpoena exposure. Loft has none of these because the server architecture does not include your file.

## More

- All tools: https://lofttools.com/tools
- Category: https://lofttools.com/tools/pdf-tools
- LLM index: https://lofttools.com/llms.txt