Edit PDF · 3 min read

How to Copy Text from a PDF — Including Scanned PDFs

Copying text from a PDF depends on whether it is a digital or scanned document. Here are the best methods for both.

1

For Digital PDFs — Select and Copy Directly

Open the PDF in Chrome or any PDF viewer. Click and drag to select the text you want. Press Ctrl+C (Windows) or Cmd+C (Mac) to copy. Paste into any document.

Tip: In Chrome, Ctrl+A selects all text on the current page. Ctrl+F opens a search bar that also lets you locate specific text to copy.

2

For Scanned PDFs — Run OCR First

Go to pdfeditor.onl/ocr-pdf. Upload the scanned PDF. Select your document language. Click Scan All Pages. The OCR tool creates a text layer over the scanned image. After OCR, you can select and copy text from the result.

3

Copy All Text as a Text File

For bulk text extraction, go to pdfeditor.onl/convert-pdf and convert the PDF to TXT format. This extracts all text content into a plain text file you can open and edit freely.

OCR PDF to Extract Text — Free →

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can't I select text in a PDF?

The PDF is likely scanned — an image of text rather than selectable text. Run OCR at pdfeditor.onl/ocr-pdf to make it selectable.

How do I copy a whole PDF's text at once?

Convert to TXT at pdfeditor.onl/convert-pdf — all text from all pages is exported to a plain text file.

Is this free?

Yes — OCR and conversion are completely free at pdfeditor.onl.

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