How to convert PDF to TXT: Detailed explanation of general operation steps

Key points of this article

First use the mouse to select a piece of text to determine the PDF type: If you can select it, it is an electronic version. If you cannot select it, it is probably a scanned copy, which needs to be identified first.
TXT only retains text, but does not retain fonts, tables and pictures. When formatting is required, other formats should be selected.
After transferring through Word, save it as plain text. It is recommended to select UTF-8 for encoding to reduce garbled characters.
After conversion, check for completeness, line breaks, table numbers and identification errors, and check important content against the original text.

If you have a PDF paper, contract or report in your hand, and you want to use the text in it to search, paste it into other programs, or hand it over to a script for processing, what you need is often not a formatted file, but a plain text TXT. Many people search for "how to convert pdf to txt", but what they get is a list of tools without telling them in what order they should operate. The converted text is often broken and messed up, and the table turns into a string of numbers.

This article talks about a general approach: first determine what type of PDF it is, then export the content to Word, and finally save it as plain text in Word. This route is not tied to a specific website, as long as you can export to Word you can do it. After reading this, you should be able to judge how to deal with it yourself, and you should also know how to check it after you get the TXT.

How to convert PDF to TXT? One sentence conclusion

Directly changing the PDF extension to .txt will not work because PDF saves layout and font information, not pure text. The feasible approach is: export the electronic PDF directly to Word and save it as TXT; the scanned document must first recognize the text and then go through the same process. The table below lists options for common situations.

your situation	Recommended practices	reason
Text can be selected with the mouse (electronic PDF)	Export to Word and save as plain text	The text is already readable, no recognition required, fast speed, few typos
Unable to select Chinese characters (scans or image PDFs)	Do OCR recognition first, then export to Word and save as TXT	The page is just an image, you must first turn the image into text
Just need one or two paragraphs	Copy to text editor and save as .txt	It’s less troublesome than a full conversion and can avoid headers and footers.
Contains a large number of tables or multi-column layout	Check the reading order after exporting, and manually organize into sections if necessary.	Plain text has no table structure, and multi-column contents are easily misordered.
Involving sensitive content such as contracts and medical records	Prioritize processing locally and do not upload to unknown websites at will.	To reduce the risk of documents being transmitted externally, you should also comply with the regulations of your unit.

Before you start: Confirm these points first

Confirm whether the PDF is a scanned copy. Use the mouse to drag a piece of text. If you can select and copy it, it means it is an electronic version. If you cannot select it, or you can only select the whole page image, it is a scanned copy and needs to be identified first. This step determines whether to do an additional step later.
Confirm whether you want pure text or retain the layout. TXT will not preserve fonts, colors, table borders and images. If you also need layout or images, you should choose Word or another format instead of TXT.
Prepare a separate working folder. Conversion will produce an intermediate file, such as a Word document. It is recommended to create a new folder and keep a backup of the original PDF to avoid overwriting the original.
Clear the required page range. If you only need the main text of a 30-page paper, you can delete the appendices and reference pages before exporting. The result will be cleaner and the workload of subsequent verification will be smaller.
Allow time for proofreading. Errors can occur in both recognition and conversion, and numbers, names, and technical terms are prone to problems. When important content is involved, it should be checked item by item against the original text. Machine output cannot be directly regarded as the final draft.

Steps to export PDF to Word and then save to TXT in OmniDoc

Open the OmniDoc desktop client. If it has not been installed, you can download it from download.omnidoc.top, which supports Windows, macOS and Linux.
Import the PDF file to be converted in the PDF editor.
If it is a scanned document found in the second step, use the OCR function in the PDF editor to recognize the text and wait until the recognition is completed before continuing.
Browse the page content and delete unnecessary pages, such as cover pages, appendices, or references.
Export the PDF to Word format and save it to the working folder.
Open the exported file with Word or compatible office software, browse quickly, and delete the remaining headers, footers, and page numbers.
Execute the save operation in the office software, select plain text (extension .txt) as the file type, and select UTF-8 as the encoding, and then save.
Re-open the .txt file with a plain text editor and confirm that the content is complete and there are no obvious garbled characters.

If there are many files to be converted, it is recommended to use one file to run through the process first, confirm that the output of each step meets expectations, and then process the remaining files one by one.

Check each item after completion

After getting the TXT, don’t rush to use it. Check it item by item according to the table below.

Check items	How to see	What to do if there is a problem
Complete content	Compare the number of pages, check the first and last paragraphs, and check the middle pages	Return to the PDF to check whether there are any missing or deleted pages; scanned copies will be re-identified.
Garbled characters	Check whether Chinese characters, symbols, and special letters are displayed as boxes or question marks	Save again and change encoding to UTF-8
decisive action	Whether each line is truncated in the middle of the sentence	Use the editor's find and replace to remove line breaks in sentences and keep blank lines between paragraphs.
Tables and Figures	Has the table turned into columns of text, and have the numbers been misplaced?	Manually organize against the original text and check key figures one by one.
Recognition error	Are there any typos, missing words, spelling errors of names or terms?	Modify against the original PDF; machine recognition results must be manually reviewed

❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Why is the PDF garbled after being converted to TXT?

Usually the encoding when saving is incorrect, or the text layer of the original file itself is abnormal. Change the encoding to UTF-8 and try again when saving as TXT. If the text is still garbled, it means there may be a problem with the text in the original file, and you can re-export it with the recognized version.

2. Why is every line of the converted text broken?

PDF is formatted according to layout, and there are fixed line breaks between lines. These line breaks will be retained after exporting. Use the editor to replace the line breaks in the sentences with spaces and keep the blank lines between paragraphs to restore normal paragraphs.

3. Can the TXT after scanned document recognition be used directly for translation or retrieval?

It can be used for retrieval and preliminary reading, but the recognition results may contain typos, which affects the accuracy of retrieval. If you want to translate or quote, you should check it against the original text first, especially important content that requires manual confirmation.

4. What should you look for when choosing an online conversion tool?

First check the file size limit, whether the output is watermarked, whether the text order is preserved, and whether the privacy policy states how long the file will be saved. When sensitive content such as contracts and medical records is involved, local processing is preferred.

📝 Summary

The key to converting PDF to TXT is to first determine whether it is a scan, then export it to Word, and finally save it as plain text and check it item by item. Master this general route, and you can get usable txt text whether you have a paper or a contract in your hand.

Open OmniDoc and export the PDF content as an editable file