PDF to text

Extract the text content from a PDF for search, indexing, or processing. FileAlloy pulls clean text in reading order through a fast, private API: send the file, get the text back. Files are processed in memory and never stored, and there is a free tier to start.

Files are processed in memory and never stored.

How to use PDF to text

Get a free API key Create an account at app.filealloy.com and generate a key. The free plan is enough to start.
POST your PDF Send the file to /v1/pdf-to-text with your key.
Get the text The document's text content comes straight back in the response, ready to index or process.

Why FileAlloy

Clean extracted text

Pulls the real text layer out of a PDF, preserving reading order for search and analysis.

Great for pipelines

Feed the output into search indexes, embeddings, or your own parsing with no manual steps.

Dropped after extraction

The PDF is read in memory and cleared the moment the text is returned, nothing is kept.

Reproducible for pipelines

Text extraction runs in the EU and is fully deterministic, so your indexes and embeddings stay reproducible.

Do it at scale with the API

Indexing PDFs for search, or feeding them to a retrieval pipeline? The same operation is a single call to /v1/pdf-to-text, so you can batch and automate it with no browser.

curl -X POST https://api.filealloy.com/v1/pdf-to-text \
  -H "X-API-Key: fa_live_your_key" \
  -F "file=@document.pdf" \
  -o document.txt

Get an API key

Frequently asked questions

What do I get back?

The plain text content of the PDF, in reading order, ready to store, search, or process.

Does it work on scanned PDFs?

Scanned pages have no text layer. Run OCR first to recover the text, then extract.

Are my files stored?

No. Files are processed in memory and deleted immediately after the response.

What is the endpoint?

POST /v1/pdf-to-text with the PDF as multipart form data.

Is this useful for search or RAG?

Yes. Extracting text is the first step to indexing PDFs for search or feeding them to a retrieval pipeline.

Is there a free option?

Yes. The free plan includes a monthly request quota, with sub-cent pricing above it.