What Extract Text Now does
Extract Text Now offers two free text-extraction tools. Choose a PDF, select the pages you need, and extract readable text into a page-by-page preview. You can copy the result or save it as a plain text file. If your document is a scan, the optional optical character recognition (OCR) setting can try to read the printed English words in its images.
Our Image to Text tool can also recognise printed English words in photos, screenshots, JPGs and PNGs. Choose images from your device, or paste a screenshot, then copy or download the recognised text. Like the PDF tool, image recognition takes place in your browser.
The tools run in your web browser. That means the PDF or image itself is processed on your own device, rather than sent to a conversion server. We chose this approach because everyday documents and photographs can include personal letters, invoices, financial records or other information that people understandably prefer not to upload.
What we believe makes a good document tool
- The main feature should be easy to find. The converter is front and centre, with no mandatory account.
- Limitations should be clear. Direct extraction works best with text-based PDFs. Scans need OCR, which is slower and less accurate.
- Results should be portable. A standard .txt file can be opened in a wide range of editors, note apps and reading tools.
- Privacy should be understandable. We explain which tasks happen locally and which outside resources the page may load.
Who may find it useful?
Students preparing study notes, office workers extracting paragraphs from reports, researchers organising quotations, and anyone with a document they need in a searchable or editable form. The site is intended for everyday use, not as a substitute for specialist legal, archival or accessibility conversion services.
Accuracy matters
PDFs describe a visual page, not necessarily a logical reading sequence. In a document with columns, footnotes, tables or decorative text, the extracted words can arrive out of order. OCR can misread characters, particularly when the scan is faint, tilted or low resolution. Please compare important output — especially names, dates, sums and quotations — with the original PDF.
Free access and future advertising
The basic converter is free. We may fund ongoing hosting and development with clearly labelled advertising after any required approval and privacy arrangements are in place. We do not ask you to interact with advertisements to use the tool. For details about how the site currently operates, see our Privacy Policy.