How to copy text from PDF that cannot be copied?

Windows PowerToys is an official toolkit released by Microsoft for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Its built-in Text Extraction feature provides an offline OCR solution that addresses the issue where you can't copy text from pdf when working with scanned, encrypted, or image-only PDF files. This feature recognizes text directly on the screen without requiring you to upload the file to an online server, making it a very convenient local tool when standard copy shortcuts fail to grab PDF content.

How to Fix Can't copy text from PDF

Step 1: Download and install the software for free from Microsoft’s official channels.

Step 2: Open the software and enable the Text Extractor module.

Step 3: Open the target PDF file using any PDF reader.

Step 4: Press the default shortcut key, Win + Shift + T, to launch the capture tool.

Step 5: Drag the mouse to draw a box around the text you want to extract in the PDF.

The recognized text will be automatically copied to the clipboard and can be pasted immediately.

The software text extractor uses Windows' native OCR engine to extract text from images in PDF files. For Windows users who frequently encounter situations where they cannot copy text from PDFs, this is the simplest offline text extraction solution; the entire process takes only about one minute after installation.

Pros

• Offline processing—no need to upload confidential PDF data to the internet.
• Native, built-in OCR functionality that consistently recognizes text in most printed PDFs.
• Simple one-click operation—easy to use with no complex settings required.
• Supports all major PDF readers on Windows 10/11.

Disadvantages

• Can only extract text from screenshots; cannot directly copy editable text layers from standard PDF files.
• Recognition accuracy drops significantly for blurry, skewed, or handwritten text in PDFs.
• Only compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11; not compatible with Mac or Linux systems.