PDF to Text & Markdown Extractor (Bulk, AI-Ready)

Extract the text from PDF files in bulk. Paste PDF links, or a web page that links to PDFs (a reports, filings, manuals or downloads page), and get clean plain text or Markdown for every document, with metadata like title, page count and dates. Choose one row per PDF or one row per page, ready for spreadsheets, search, AI and RAG pipelines.

• Bulk: hundreds of PDFs per run, processed in parallel.
• Find PDFs for you: give it a web page and it extracts every linked PDF.
• AI-ready output: Markdown with headings, bullet lists and <!-- page N --> markers, or per-page rows for chunking and citations.
• Clean text: hyphenated line breaks re-joined, extra whitespace removed.
• Metadata: title, author, subject, keywords, creator app, created and modified dates, page count, file size.
• Fair pricing: pay per page extracted. Broken links, non-PDF files and scanned PDFs without text are not charged.

Who is it for?

• AI and RAG builders: turn PDF libraries (papers, manuals, policies, reports) into text for embeddings and chatbots.
• Researchers and analysts: pull text from annual reports, government documents, academic papers and filings.
• Legal, compliance and procurement: search contracts, tenders and regulations at scale.
• SEO and content teams: audit and repurpose PDF content published on websites.

How to use it

1. Paste PDF URLs, one per line, and/or web pages that link to PDFs.
2. Choose the Output format (text, Markdown or both) and whether you want one row per page.
3. Click Start, then download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or get them through the API.

Input example

{
  "pdfUrls": ["https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762", "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf"],
  "webPagesWithPdfLinks": ["https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions"],
  "maxPdfsPerWebPage": 10,
  "outputFormat": "markdown",
  "splitByPage": false
}

Output example

{
  "url": "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf",
  "fileName": "fw9.pdf",
  "pageCount": 6,
  "pagesExtracted": 6,
  "fileSizeBytes": 140815,
  "metaTitle": "Form W-9 (Rev. March 2024)",
  "metaAuthor": "SE:W:CAR:MP",
  "metaSubject": "Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification",
  "metaCreatedAt": "2024-03-06T08:18:13Z",
  "isScannedOrImageOnly": false,
  "charCount": 37677,
  "wordCount": 6272,
  "text": "Form W-9\n(Rev. March 2024)\nRequest for Taxpayer\nIdentification Number and Certification..."
}

With One row per page on, each row also has pageNumber and that page's text and/or markdown.

How much does it cost?

Pay-per-event: a small fee per PDF page extracted plus a tiny per-run start fee, with no subscription and no separate platform usage costs. For example, 1,000 pages cost about $0.50. Failed downloads, non-PDF links and scanned PDFs with no text layer are not charged. Set Maximum cost per run to cap your spending. If the cap is reached mid-document, the output is cut at that point and you are never charged above it.

Limits

• Scanned PDFs (photos of paper) have no text layer and need OCR. They are detected, marked isScannedOrImageOnly: true and not charged.
• Complex tables come out as text lines, not spreadsheet cells.
• Only public PDFs. Links that need a login can't be downloaded.

Use it through the API, integrations or AI agents

Run it from the Apify API, schedules, Make, Zapier or n8n, or call it from AI agents through the Apify MCP server. Pair it with LangChain or LlamaIndex loaders to feed the text straight into vector databases.

FAQ

Is the text extraction accurate? For digital PDFs (made by Word, Google Docs, LaTeX, reporting tools) the text is extracted exactly as stored in the file, in reading order.

Can it open password-protected PDFs? Yes, if you set the PDF password field.

Found a bug or need a feature? Open an issue. We usually reply within 24 hours.

More tools from this developer

• SAM.gov Contract Opportunities Finder & Bid Alerts: federal contract opportunities and bid alerts
• Sitemap & URL Extractor: get every URL of a website from its sitemaps
• Website to Markdown for AI & RAG: turn web pages into clean Markdown for LLMs
• Tech Stack Detector: find what any website is built with
• Apple App Store Reviews Scraper: App Store reviews and ratings for any app
• ATS Jobs Scraper: jobs from Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable and more
• Website Screenshot: full-page, mobile and PDF screenshots in bulk
• Domain WHOIS, DNS & SSL Checker: bulk domain, DNS, email security and SSL checks
• SEO Meta Tags & On-Page Audit: bulk on-page SEO audit with fixes
• Bulk URL Status & Broken Link Checker: status codes, redirect chains and broken links
• RSS & Atom Feed Reader: merge and filter many news feeds
• Hacker News Scraper: HN stories, comments and Who is hiring jobs
• Academic Paper Search: papers from Crossref, arXiv and PubMed
• SEC EDGAR Filings & Financials: 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K filings and company financials