PDFExtract guides

Turn a PDF into clean Markdown on your iPhone: headings, lists and paragraphs rebuilt, two columns read in order. Copy or share it, with no upload.

Scanned or photographed pages become Markdown text using on-device recognition. When OCR kicks in, how to get better accuracy, and how long it takes.

Choose recognition languages, decide on auto-detect, and use language correction well, so English-only OCR stops garbling Chinese, Japanese or mixed text.

Tables in PDFs usually paste as run-together lines. PDFExtract can rebuild detected tables as real Markdown tables. How it works, what it handles and where it struggles.

Pull the photos, charts and logos out of a PDF as PNG files. What counts as an image, why page screenshots are not the same, and the free 10-image limit.

Get the Markdown and every extracted image in one ZIP with Texts and Images folders. What is inside, and how to open it in notes apps and file managers.

Change how PDFExtract writes the text: structured Markdown, raw lines as read, or plain paragraphs. Page headings, document title and the rendered vs source view.

Import a locked PDF by entering its password once. How the password is used, what to do when it is wrong, and what PDFExtract does not do with protected files.

Every import becomes a project you can reopen, rename, search, share and re-run with different OCR or Markdown settings. List or grid view, and how to clean up storage.

From paper, report or scan to clean Markdown in Obsidian, Notion or Bear: import, extract, check, copy, and keep the figures.

PDF reading, OCR, layout and table models all run on your iPhone and documents are never uploaded. It contacts servers for purchases and feedback only.

A checklist for bad extraction: wrong languages, low resolution, locked pages in the free tier, scans treated as text, columns, tables and unreadable pages.

What is free (first 5 pages, 10 images, all settings), what Pro adds (every page, all images, tables, ZIP), and the monthly, yearly and lifetime options.