How to Extract Plaintext from PDF Documents: Selectable vs. Scanned PDFs

Selectable Text PDFs vs. Scanned Image PDFs

Understanding which type of PDF you have determines how you extract text:

Selectable text PDFs:

• Created directly from applications: Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Adobe InDesign, PowerPoint
• Characters are stored as Unicode text objects in the PDF file structure
• You can select and copy text directly in any PDF viewer
• Text extraction tools work instantly without any image processing
• Example: A contract created in Word and exported as PDF

Scanned image PDFs:

• Created by scanning physical paper documents
• The PDF contains page images — photographs of the document
• No text objects — the text exists only as pixels in the image
• You cannot select or copy text in a standard PDF viewer
• Requires OCR to recognize and convert pixel characters to editable text
• Example: A signed paper contract photographed or scanned

How to identify which type you have: Try selecting text in your PDF viewer. If you can highlight individual words, it's a selectable PDF. If dragging selects the entire page as an image, it's a scanned PDF.

Step-by-Step: Extract Text from PDF on ToolDolfen

1. Open the ToolDolfen Extract Text from PDF tool.
2. Upload your PDF.
3. The tool automatically detects whether the PDF has selectable text:

- Selectable PDF: Text is extracted immediately with high accuracy - Scanned PDF: OCR is applied automatically to recognize characters

1. Copy the extracted text or download as a .txt file.

Formatting note: Extracted text is plain text only. Tables are converted to tab-separated rows. Headers and paragraph spacing are approximated. For preserving layout, use a Word conversion tool instead.