PDF INTO EDITABLE TEXT
PDF to Word
Pull the text out of a PDF and download it as a Word document you can actually edit. Nothing is uploaded, the whole conversion happens on your own device.
Drop a PDF here, or browse
PDF files that contain real text. Nothing is uploaded anywhere
Reading the PDF
A free PDF to Word converter that never uploads your file
Drop in a PDF, get the text back as an editable Word document. The whole thing happens inside your browser, so the file stays on your device from start to finish. There is no account to make, no watermark on the result, and no cap on how many documents you can put through it.
Most free PDF to Word services online work the other way around. Your document is uploaded to their servers, converted there, and held for some period before deletion. For a takeaway menu that is fine. For an employment contract, a bank statement, a medical letter or a signed agreement, it means handing a private document to a company you know nothing about. This tool removes that question entirely, because there is no server involved.
What you get, and what you do not
Being straight about this saves disappointment. What comes out is the text of your PDF, in reading order, as genuine editable content in a DOCX file. What does not come out is the visual design: multiple columns are flattened into a single flow, table grids are lost, images are not carried over, and fonts and spacing are not reproduced.
For most reasons people convert a PDF that is exactly the right trade. Common ones include:
- Editing a document when the original file is long gone and all you have is the PDF
- Reusing text from a report, a paper or a proposal without retyping it
- Getting a CV out of PDF form so it can be updated for a new application
- Pulling quotes, clauses or references out of a long document
- Feeding text into a translator, a summariser or a notes app
Text based PDFs and scanned PDFs are not the same thing
This is the single most common source of confusion, so it is worth understanding. A PDF made by exporting from Word, Google Docs, a browser or almost any design program contains the actual characters as data. That is a text based PDF and this tool reads it perfectly.
A PDF made by a scanner, or by photographing pages, contains only images. The words are visible to you but there is nothing for software to extract, because as far as the file is concerned each page is one picture. If you drop one of those in here you will get little or nothing back. The fix is optical character recognition, which reads letters visually, and that is what the photo to text tool on this site does.
A quick way to tell which kind you have: open the PDF and try to select a sentence with your cursor. If the text highlights, it is text based. If you can only draw a box over it, it is a scan.
How to convert a PDF to Word
Drop the file onto the tool above, or click to browse for it. The text is pulled out page by page and appears in the box, where you can read it over and fix anything that came through oddly before exporting. Press download and you get a DOCX file that opens in Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice or Pages.
Once you have the text, the photo to PDF converter is there if you need to turn the edited result back into a PDF later.
Is this PDF to Word converter free?
Yes. There is no account, no trial, no watermark and no page limit. You can convert as many PDFs as you like.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No. The PDF is opened and read inside your browser on your own device, and nothing is sent anywhere. That matters for contracts, statements, CVs and anything else you would rather not hand to a stranger's server.
Will the Word file look exactly like my PDF?
No, and that is worth being clear about. This tool extracts the text, so you get accurate editable words in a clean document. Columns, tables, images and precise positioning are not rebuilt. If you need the words, this is ideal. If you need a pixel copy of the layout, no browser based tool will manage it.
Why does my PDF come out empty?
Almost certainly because it is a scanned PDF. A scan is a picture of a page, so there is no text inside the file to extract. Use the photo to text tool instead, which reads the letters visually with optical character recognition.
Can I convert a PDF to Word on my phone?
Yes. The tool runs in any modern mobile browser, so you can convert a PDF and download the DOCX without installing an app.
Does it work on password protected PDFs?
Not on ones that need a password to open. Remove the protection first in whatever program you normally use, then convert the unlocked copy.
What can I open the downloaded file with?
It is a standard DOCX, so it opens in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice Writer, Apple Pages and anything else that reads Word documents.