PixoateExtract text from images — free
Pull editable text out of photos, screenshots and scans with accurate OCR — copy it or download in a click, in 100+ languages.
- Accurate OCR in 100+ languages
- Copy the text or download it instantly
- Free · no signup · files deleted automatically
JPG, PNG, WEBP and more · Up to 50 MB
Upload PDF
Drop a PDF to extract text
PDF up to 50MB
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Extract editable text from photos, screenshots and scans with free OCR in 60+ languages.
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Try it nowFrequently Asked Questions
Upload your PDF and the tool detects whether it contains a real text layer or just scanned images. Text-layer PDFs export instantly. Image-only PDFs (scanned books, photographed receipts, old reports) run through OCR automatically. Either way you get a clean .txt file with paragraphs, line breaks and section spacing preserved.
usageYes. If the PDF is image-only (common for scans, photographed pages or fax exports), the OCR engine kicks in automatically — you do not need a separate tool. Multi-language support is built in, so even bilingual or non-Latin scripts (Chinese, Arabic, Hindi) get extracted in the same pass.
featuresParagraph breaks, blank lines between sections, bullet point markers and numbered list prefixes are preserved as plain text. Headings come through in upper-case or as their original casing depending on the source font. Visual emphasis (bold, italic) is not encoded in plain text — for that, use the PDF to Word converter instead.
technicalYes. Enter the password in the prompt after upload, and the tool unlocks the file in memory just long enough to extract the text. The password is never stored on disk or transmitted to third-party services. Locked PDFs without the password cannot be processed — for security reasons, no password-cracking is performed.
featuresFiles up to 50 MB and 500 pages process without trouble. Larger documents work too but take longer — a 2000-page legal archive may take a few minutes for OCR. For massive batches, split the PDF first with the PDF Split tool and process each chunk in parallel.
technicalProcessing happens on secure servers and files are deleted within minutes. The .txt output is yours — no watermark, no attribution, no tracking. Researchers, journalists, lawyers and students use the tool to extract text from confidential reports knowing the source PDF is not retained beyond the conversion.
privacyHow PDF to Text helps you get it done
Real problems it solves every day — for businesses, creators, and everyday tasks. Find the use case that fits you and start in seconds.
Lecture & Course Note Extraction
Students extract plain text from professor-supplied PDF lecture notes and lab manuals so they can paste excerpts into Notion, Obsidian and study flashcards.
Resume Text for Bulk Submissions
Job seekers extract plain text from their PDF resume to paste into ATS application forms, LinkedIn Easy Apply and recruiter-portal text fields that don't accept file uploads.
Email Drafts from PDF Reports
Analysts extract executive-summary sections from long PDF reports to paste into emails, Slack messages and Teams chats so stakeholders read the key insights quickly.
SEO Audit of Existing PDF Resources
Marketers extract text from old PDF whitepapers and eBooks to audit keyword coverage, identify content gaps and republish as fresh blog posts for organic search.
Translation Workflow Preparation
Translators extract text from a PDF source before pasting it into translation memory tools like Trados, MemoQ or DeepL Pro for faster, more accurate localization.
AI Prompts from Long PDF Reports
Power users extract text from PDF research papers and feed it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini as context for summaries, Q&A and key-point extraction.
Plain-Text Backup Archives
IT and records teams extract plain text from PDF document archives to create lightweight, future-proof backups that don't depend on PDF viewers in 20 years.
Citation & Reference Lists
Researchers extract bibliography sections from PDFs into plain text so they can paste them into Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote without manual retyping of each entry.