Free tool · PDF · nothing uploaded
Extract the text from a CV PDF
Pull the plain text out of a CV PDF to paste into an ATS, a job spec or an email.
- Your file never leaves your computer
- No sign-up
- PDF in, Plain text out
1Choose your file
Your file never leaves your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
2Check the settings
3Get your file
About this tool
This free tool pulls the text out of a CV PDF, page by page, into a plain .txt file you can paste into an ATS, a job spec or an email. It reads the text actually stored in the PDF, so it is exact, and it tells you plainly when a page is a scan with no text in it. No login, no upload.
How it works
- 1
Drop the CV PDF
Any PDF with real text in it.
- 2
Choose the layout
Mark where each page starts, or leave out pages that have no text.
- 3
Download the .txt
Plain text, UTF-8, that opens correctly in Notepad and pastes cleanly anywhere.
When recruiters use it
Pasting a candidate's experience into an ATS record that will not parse the file, lifting a skills section into a shortlist email, searching a long CV for a keyword, or getting clean text of a job description to adapt for an advert. It is exact because it reads the text the PDF already contains rather than guessing from an image.
Worth knowing
- There is no OCR. A scanned or photographed CV has no text to extract, and the tool says so rather than handing you an empty file.
- Text comes out in the order the PDF stores it. Two-column CVs sometimes interleave the columns.
- Formatting, tables and bullet styling are not kept: this is plain text.
Questions recruiters ask
- Why is my extracted text empty?
- The PDF is a scan or a photo of a document. It contains a picture of text, not text, and this tool does not do OCR.
- Will the text keep the CV's layout?
- Line breaks are kept; columns, tables and styling are not. It is meant for pasting, not for reproducing the document.
- Is the CV uploaded?
- No. The text is read in your browser.
- Can I extract text from a Word CV?
- This tool reads PDFs. For a Word document, open it in Word and copy the text, or save it as PDF first.
Structured CV data, not just text
Formatix reads any CV, including scans, and turns it into structured sections in your own template, in 40+ languages.
More free tools for recruiters
- CV anonymiserRemove the name, contact details, photo, date of birth and nationality from a PDF or Word CV.
- Split a CV bookSplit a bulk CV book or multi-candidate PDF into one file per candidate.
- PDF to imagesTurn CV or profile pages into PNG or JPEG images for LinkedIn posts or client portals.
- Merge CV PDFsBuild one candidate submission pack: cover note, CV, assessment and references in one PDF.
Open source: github.com/OpenRecruiterTools/recruiter-tools (MIT). Uses pdf.js, pdf-lib, JSZip and SheetJS, served from formatix.ai.