How to use PDF to Text
- 1
Choose one or more PDFs.
- 2
Decide whether to keep page separators.
- 3
Press Extract text and download the .txt file.
How text is read
PDFs store text as positioned fragments rather than paragraphs. FileSwiftly reads those fragments page by page and rebuilds lines from their positions, so headings, paragraphs and simple lists come out in reading order for normal single-column documents.
Multi-column layouts and tables
Two-column articles and tables are read line by line across the page, which can interleave columns. For tables, the cells of each row end up on one line separated by spaces. That is usually good enough for searching and quoting, but not for rebuilding a spreadsheet.
Scanned PDFs
A scanned document is a picture of text, not text. If the result is empty or nearly empty, the PDF has no text layer and would need OCR (optical character recognition), which FileSwiftly does not offer yet. The result screen warns you when a page has no text.
Encoding
The output is UTF-8 plain text, so accented letters, symbols and non-Latin scripts are kept as long as the PDF maps them to Unicode correctly.
PDF to Text: frequently asked questions
Will formatting like bold or font size be kept?
No. Plain text has no formatting; only characters and line breaks are kept.
Why do some words come out garbled?
Some PDFs use fonts without a proper Unicode mapping. The text looks right on screen but its underlying codes are meaningless. There is no reliable fix other than OCR.
Can I extract text from many PDFs at once?
Yes. Each PDF becomes its own .txt file, delivered together in a ZIP.
Is the text sent anywhere?
No. Extraction happens in your browser tab.