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PDF to Plain text converter

PDF to TXT uses AI Deep Read for every page, producing plain text from both scanned and digital PDFs without relying on the PDF text layer alone.

  • Converted with AI Deep Read · input deleted within 24 h
  • Free: 5 conversions a day · 5 MB each
  • Higher limits →

From real runs

What you get — and what changes

  • Printed text Kept

    Printed text is transcribed to UTF-8 plain text when it is legible to the vision model.

  • Scanned pages Changed

    Scans are OCRed page by page; skew, shadows, handwriting, and low resolution reduce accuracy.

  • Layout Changed

    The layout option controls whether text keeps line positions or flows into paragraphs.

  • Hyphenation Kept

    Words hyphenated at line ends are preserved as-is rather than automatically joined.

  • Headers and footers Kept

    Repeated headers and footers appear per page because the TXT output is page transcription.

  • Tables Changed

    Tables become aligned text in keep mode or row-like text in flow mode; there are no table objects in TXT.

  • Images Lost

    Non-text images are not embedded in TXT, though visible text inside images can be transcribed.

Sample conversions

Scanned policy PDF

Input
15-page scan of a policy manual with page headers, numbered clauses, line-end hyphenation, and two approval tables.
Output
TXT contained readable clauses and repeated headers on each page. Hyphenated line breaks remained, and approval tables were best reviewed in keep layout.

Digital legal filing

Input
32-page searchable PDF filing with footers, exhibit labels, stamped page numbers, and a few scanned exhibits.
Output
Deep Read transcribed both selectable pages and scanned exhibits into one text file. Page footers repeated, and exhibit stamps appeared inline with nearby text.

Receipt batch PDF

Input
4-page PDF made from phone photos of receipts with skew, item rows, totals, and store logos.
Output
Store names, item rows, and totals were mostly present. Skewed small print had several uncertain characters, and logos were not described.

A real PDF → Plain text run

We converted our PDF sample (91 KB) with AI Deep Read under AI Deep Read on 2026-09-11. It took 5.9 s and produced a 497 B Plain text file, 99% smaller than the input. The engine raised 1 warning, listed below.

Input · sample.pdf · 91 KB

PDF 1.4, 1 page, no text layer, 1 image object

Version
1.4
Pages
1
Images
1
Text layer
no

Output · sample.txt · 497 B

14 non-empty lines, 97 words

Lines
14
Words
97
  • AI Deep Read read 1 page; 1 credit per page

First lines of the output

txt
# Feedback Atlas — Q3 activity trail

Prepared for: Board of Directors · 12 Sep 2026

## Headline numbers

| Metric | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---:|---:|
| ARR | $4.1M | $4.9M |
| Net revenue retention | 108% | 113% |
| Support CSAT | 93% | 94% |
| Refunds | (12,400) | (9,850) |

## What went well

- Enterprise pipeline doubled after the SOC 2 report shipped.
- Support CSAT held at 94% while ticket volume rose 31%.
- Two renewals slipped into October. Owner: VP Sales.
…

Is your file a scan?

A scanned PDF usually fails text selection, has image-heavy file size per page, and our detector flags no text layer. Deep Read costs 1 credit/page. Clean 300 dpi scans are very readable; faded, skewed, handwritten, or low-contrast pages are less reliable, and dense tables should be reviewed against the original.

Options and when to change them

language
Set when the PDF contains a known non-English language or mixed-language OCR-sensitive text.
layout
Choose keep for line-position-sensitive pages and tables; choose flow for prose that will be pasted into an editor.

Do it yourself

pdftotext

bash
pdftotext -layout in.pdf out.txt

This is useful for PDFs with a good text layer, but it will not OCR scanned pages.

ocrmypdf + pdftotext

bash
ocrmypdf in.pdf searchable.pdf
pdftotext -layout searchable.pdf out.txt

OCR quality depends on scan quality and the OCR engine; output will differ from Deep Read's page transcription.

PDF to Plain text by API or MCP

The HTTP API and the MCP server run the exact engine this page uses (AI Deep Read); the response carries the same warnings the web converter shows. Check support first with GET /api/v1/pairs?from=pdf&to=txt.

curl
curl -X POST https://filetypeconverters.com/api/v1/convert \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FTC_API_KEY" \
  -F "file=@input.pdf" -F "from=pdf" -F "to=txt" \
  -F "deepRead=true" \
  --output output.txt
API reference

When this is the wrong conversion

  • If you need tables as cells, use an extract-table-from-pdf workflow instead of plain TXT.
  • If you need editable document structure, convert PDF to DOCX rather than TXT.
  • If exact visual layout matters, keep the PDF or export page images.

PDF to Plain text questions

Why does PDF to TXT use Deep Read even for searchable PDFs?

This route uses page vision consistently so scanned inserts and digital pages are handled by the same transcription pipeline.

Should I choose keep or flow layout?

Choose keep for forms, tables, and line-position-sensitive pages. Choose flow for prose that should read as paragraphs.

Will hyphenated line endings be fixed?

No. Hyphenation at line ends is preserved as-is so the text remains faithful to the page transcription.

Why do headers and footers repeat?

TXT output is page-based transcription, so repeated page furniture appears each time it is printed.

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