# PDF to text
Extract readable text from a born-digital PDF in your browser. The selected
file is read into WebAssembly memory on this page. It is not uploaded or sent
to a server.
The extractor interprets text positioning, common PDF text operators,
WinAnsi fonts, and basic `ToUnicode` maps. It reconstructs visual lines,
inserts likely spaces, removes overlapping duplicate glyphs, and separates
pages with form-feed characters.
It does not perform OCR, infer tables, decrypt files, expand compressed object
streams, or guarantee the reading order of complex multi-column layouts.
Scanned PDFs therefore need an OCR component first. Input is limited to 64
MiB, and output is limited to 32 MiB.
## CLI equivalent
```sh
./qip run -i document.pdf -o document.txt -- \
components/application/pdf/pdf-extract-text.wasm
```
## Download the component
- pdf-extract-text.wasm
()