Fix text copied from a PDFPDF Text Formatter

Copying from a PDF breaks every line, splits words with hyphens and drags page numbers and headers into the middle of your text. Paste it here and get it back whole.

Fix PDF text

Free · no sign-up

In short: Paste text copied from any PDF (papers, reports, ebooks, statements) and get clean paragraphs back, with split words rejoined and page furniture removed.

¶ Before / After

What a PDF copy-paste looks like, fixed

Broken lines, split words and a page break in the middle.

Before

2 Methods Journal of Urban Ecology Vol. 12 We surveyed 64 rooftop gardens across four districts between April and Sep- tember, recording pollinator visits in 20-minute windows.¹ Gardens were classified by planting density (low, medium, high) and by distance from the nearest park. Page 4 of 18 Journal of Urban Ecology Vol. 12 Visit counts were highest in high-den- sity gardens within 500 m of a park, averaging 41 visits per window com- pared with 12 in low-density gardens.

After

2. Methods

We surveyed 64 rooftop gardens across four districts between April and September, recording pollinator visits in 20-minute windows.¹ Gardens were classified by planting density (low, medium, high) and by distance from the nearest park.

Visit counts were highest in high-density gardens within 500 m of a park, averaging 41 visits per window compared with 12 in low-density gardens.

¶ Process

Three steps, no setup

No install, no account.

1
Copy from the PDF
Select and copy the text as usual, even across page breaks.
2
Paste and format
Lines are rejoined, hyphenated words mended and page numbers and headers removed.
3
Use it
Copy the clean text, or export to Word, PDF, text or Markdown.

¶ Capabilities

PDF problems it fixes

Line-by-line breaks

Every visual line in a PDF becomes a hard break on paste. They’re rejoined into paragraphs.

Hyphenated words

“Sep-\ntember” becomes “September” again.

Page numbers & headers

“Page 4 of 18” and repeated journal or chapter headers are removed from the flow.

Headings & lists

Section titles and numbered lists are recognised and formatted properly.

Rescue your PDF text

No more deleting line breaks by hand.

Fix PDF text

Free · no sign-up

¶ Good to know

Frequently asked questions

Why does text copied from a PDF have line breaks?

PDFs store text as positioned lines rather than paragraphs, so copying gives you a hard line break at the end of every line. This tool works out which breaks are real and removes the rest.

Does it remove page numbers and headers?

Yes. Running headers, footers and page numbers that interrupt the text are removed. Footnote markers are kept.

Can I upload a PDF file?

Not yet: copy the text from your PDF viewer and paste it in. This keeps everything in your browser and nothing is stored.

Does it work for scanned PDFs?

If your PDF viewer can select the text (it has been OCR’d), yes. Image-only scans need OCR first.

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