The P D F Converter is a free, small utility that can extract text from a P D F file and save it as a text file for easy reading. P D F Converter is designed as an aid to blind people, but it can also be useful to sighted people.

   P D F files can be difficult for screen reading software to handle. Moreover, there is no reason that blind people - or anyone else, for that matter - should have to read P D F files directly. The P D F format (Portable Document Format) is designed to provide accurate printing of files that may include both text and graphics. It is a poor choice for any other use, and is an awkard format to read, even for sighted people. But unfortunately, P D F format has become very popular because it comes in a very "official looking" package. That makes it appealing to business people who know a lot about making an impression and know very little about file formats.

   In many cases - and particularly for blind people - the most sensible way to handle P D F files is to just extract the text to a simple text file and avoid the cumbersome P D F format altogether. That is what the P D F Converter lets you do.

Using P D F Converter

   After P D F Converter is installed there will be a menu item on the context menu for P D F files that says "Convert To Text". Clicking that menu will create a text file next to the P D F file that has the same file name. There are three steps to convert a P D F file:

Step One: Select a P D F file. To select a file means that the focus is on that file. Files are selected, for example, when you down arrow through Explorer. The file name that your screen reader speaks is the file currently selected.

Step two: With a P D F file selected, press the context menu key. The context menu key is the third key to the right from the space bar. (Unlike the Alt, Control and Windows keys, there is only one context menu key.)

Step three: Use down arrow to cycle through items on the context menu until you reach the menu item named Convert To Text. Then press the Enter key.

   The converter will then extract the text from the P D F file and a text file will be created with the same name and path. For example, if the file is C:\Windows\Desktop\story.pdf the converter will create a file C:\Windows\Desktop\story.txt.

That is the complete instructions for use of the P D F Converter.

Installing P D F Converter

   To install P D F Converter just download the installer file from the link below. The file name is pdfc10.exe or p d f c 1 0 dot e x e. After downloading, run the installer file by selecting it and pressing the Enter key.

Troubleshooting Notes

Context menu option disappears: Once P D F Converter is installed, there should be a "Convert To Text" option on the context menu for P D F files. However, if you later uninstall or re-install any P D F software, the context menu option may disappear. If that happens just install P D F Converter again. (Some P D F software installation seems to damage the settings needed to create the context menu. A re-install of P D F Converter will restore the settings.)

Converted P D F file is empty: P D F Converter can retrieve actual text inside a P D F file. However, not all P D F files contain text. For instance, in some cases a magazine article or book saved as a P D F file may actually contain pictures of the pages from that article or book, rather than the text itself. If you happen across an empty P D F file you might try writing to the webmaster where the download came from and ask if they would consider providing a text-based download.

Update: April 18, 2008

   P D F Converter has been updated to use the latest version of XPDF, version 3.02. The older version did not work with newer types of P D F files.

Download

    Download P D F Converter - 347 KB

About Converting P D F files to text

   The real work of extracting the text from P D F files in the P D F Converter is done by pdftotext.exe, which is part of the Open Source project XPDF. XPDF also includes a P D F viewer program and various other utilities. pdftotext.exe is a command line program. The P D F Converter simply makes the process of using that program more convenient.

   The XPDF files can be obtained from http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/. They are released under GNU Public License and the source code is also available.

   Thank you to the authors and maintainers of XPDF for allowing the use of their work in the P D F Converter utility.