Extract text from a PDF
Extract text as .txt/.docx/markdown — Tesseract 5 LSTM OCR 100+ langs (EN/ES/AR/ZH/JA/HE/HI/CYR), 99%+ accuracy. Ready for FRCP Rule 34 e-discovery, IRS 1099-NEC, USPTO.…
How it works
Upload the PDF
Drop your file. If it is a scan, OCR starts automatically.
Pick the format
Plain .txt, formatted .docx, or copy text directly.
Download
Clean text ready to index, translate or archive.
Why choose iFillPDF
Multi-language OCR
Tesseract 5 LSTM with 100+ trained-language models: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Arabic (right-to-left), Hebrew (RTL), Chinese Simplified/Traditional, Japanese (with vertical-text mode), Korean, Hindi (Devanagari),…
Structure preserved
Headings, paragraphs and lists kept in .docx output.
Full-text searchable
Extracted text is indexable by your favorite search engine.
EU-hosted, GDPR
Your files are stored in Frankfurt (EU), AES-256 at rest.
Technical details
Pull every character out of your PDF as .txt, .docx or markdown — Tesseract 5 LSTM OCR handles scans in 100+ languages (English, Spanish, Arabic RTL, Chinese Simplified/Traditional, Japanese vertical, Hebrew, Hindi Devanagari, Cyrillic). 99%+ accuracy on typed text per Google Tesseract benchmarks, output ready for IRS Form 1099-NEC indexing, USPTO patent searches, FRCP Rule 34 e-discovery production. No Smallpdf $12/mo (2 files/day free cap), no Adobe Acrobat $19.99/mo, no ABBYY FineReader $199/yr.
Go further with lifetime access
E-signature proof log, business templates, no watermark. $8.99, one payment, for life — no subscription.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free?+
Yes — the free plan gives you everything with a watermark and 0 AI Deep Detect, then a one-time $8.99 Lifetime payment removes the watermark for good, and AI Deep Detect comes as one-time credit packs. No credit card required for the free plan.
Is my data safe?+
Yes — we host in Frankfurt (EU), AES-256 at rest. GDPR-compliant, never used to train third-party AI.
Does OCR work on handwriting?+
Partially. Tesseract 5 LSTM (the open-source engine maintained by Google + UB Mannheim, the same engine Adobe Acrobat OCR licenses internally) handles typed text at 99.0–99.5% accuracy on 300+ DPI scans per the official ICDAR benchmark, neat block-letter handwriting at 75-85%, and cursive or messy handwriting under 50%. For mission-critical handwriting (HIPAA-protected medical charts, FRE 902 evidence-grade legal records, IRS Form 1040 amended returns), we recommend manual transcription or a specialized HTR engine like Transkribus / Google Cloud Vision Document AI ($1.50/1000 pages) rather than relying on OCR alone — a single mis-transcribed prescription dose or contract clause can cost $50K+ in malpractice / contract-rescission exposure.
Can I process a password-protected PDF?+
Yes if you have the password. Without it, we refuse out of respect for encryption.
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