Drop a PDF and get its text as a plain .txt file — extracted on your device, nothing uploaded.
Drop a PDF and get its text as a plain .txt file — extracted on your device, nothing uploaded.
Extract the text from a PDF into a plain .txt file. GhostPDF reads the document's text layer page by page with pdf.js, in your browser, and writes it out with a blank line between pages — ready to paste into an email, a notes app, a spreadsheet, or an AI chat without the PDF's formatting getting in the way. No upload, no signup.
This works on PDFs that contain real text — anything exported from Word, Google Docs, a browser, or most business software. A scanned PDF is a picture of text with no text layer, so it comes back essentially empty; for those, run the page images through Image to text (OCR) instead.
Drop your PDF
It opens in the GhostPDF studio with Convert → Text pre-selected.
Text is extracted locally
pdf.js reads every page's text layer in your browser.
Download the .txt
Save the plain-text file — pages are separated by a blank line.
A quick redaction check
Extracting text is the fastest way to test someone else's redaction: if words that are blacked out on screen show up in the .txt, they were never removed.
Reading order
Text comes out in the order the PDF stores it, which usually matches reading order. Multi-column layouts can interleave; PDF to Word keeps more of the layout.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. Extraction runs in your browser; the document never leaves your device.
Why is my output empty?
The PDF is almost certainly a scan — an image of text with no text layer. Convert the pages to images and use Image to text (OCR), which reads the words from the picture.
Does it keep formatting?
No — that's the point of plain text. Fonts, columns, and tables are flattened to words. For editable formatting, use PDF to Word; for tables, PDF to Excel.
Is redacted text extracted?
Only if it's still in the text layer — which is exactly how badly redacted PDFs leak. If a "redacted" PDF gives you the hidden words here, the redaction was only a black box on top. GhostPDF's Redact tool flattens the page so no text survives.
A step-by-step checklist for confirming that redacted content can’t be recovered.
PDF to Word
Rebuild a PDF as an editable .docx — text and structure transfer, locally.
PDF to Excel
Rebuild statement and invoice tables as a real .xlsx — numbers as numbers.
Image to text (OCR)
Extract text from screenshots and photos — recognized on your device.
Redact PDF
Black out sensitive text so it is removed, not just covered.
Every GhostPDF tool runs entirely in your browser. Your file is never uploaded — there's no upload endpoint to send it to.