Clean Copied Text

Extract text from a PDF file

Upload a PDF and get clean, plain text back — no need to open it and copy-paste manually. The file is parsed entirely in your browser using PDF.js; it is never uploaded anywhere. The extracted text is automatically run through the same PDF cleanup used by the paste-based tool, rejoining broken lines and hyphenated words.

Drop a PDF here

Or click to choose a file. It never leaves your browser.

Choose PDF file

Your text stays in your browser. Clean Copied Text does not upload or store what you paste.

What this tool fixes

  • The manual step of opening a PDF viewer and selecting all the text yourself
  • Broken line breaks and hyphenated words in the extracted text, cleaned automatically
  • Multi-page documents — every page is extracted and joined into one result
  • PDFs that would otherwise require a desktop app just to get the text out

How to use it

  1. 1Paste your textDrop in the messy text you copied from anywhere.
  2. 2Click cleanClean Copied Text fixes the formatting instantly, in your browser.
  3. 3Copy the resultCopy the clean text or download it as a .txt file.

Common uses

Getting the text out of a long PDF report without scrolling and selecting manuallyExtracting a contract or form so it can be searched or edited as plain textPulling text from a PDF you received by email to paste into another documentChecking whether a PDF actually contains selectable text before relying on it

Limitations

  • It cannot extract text from scanned or image-only PDFs — there is no OCR step.
  • Password-protected PDFs are not supported; remove the password before uploading.
  • Very large or complex PDFs (hundreds of pages, embedded fonts) may take longer to parse since parsing happens on your device, not a server.

Related tools

Clean text copied from a PDFPaste text copied from a PDF and clean broken line breaks, hyphenated words, extra spaces, page numbers and messy formatting in one click.
Clean up messy textPaste messy text and clean spacing, line breaks, duplicates and formatting in one click. Free, private and runs entirely in your browser.
Word and character counterCount characters, words, lines, paragraphs and reading time. Handy length hints for posts, bios, titles, descriptions, resumes and emails.

Frequently asked questions

Is my PDF file uploaded to a server?
No. The file is read and parsed entirely in your browser using the PDF.js library. It is never sent anywhere.
Does it work on scanned PDFs (photos of pages)?
No. It can only extract text that already exists as selectable text in the PDF. A scanned page is just an image — extracting text from it requires OCR, which this tool does not do.
Does it work on password-protected PDFs?
No. Remove the password from the file first (most PDF viewers can do this if you know the password), then upload it here.
Is there a file size limit?
Files up to 30 MB are supported. Very large PDFs may take a few extra seconds to parse since everything runs on your device.
What happens to the extracted text afterwards?
It is automatically run through the same cleanup as the paste-based PDF tool — broken lines and hyphenated words are rejoined before you see the result.

Know someone who fights with messy pasted text?

Send them this tool — it might save them a headache with their next PDF, spreadsheet or chat export.

Share on WhatsAppShare by email