> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.pdf4llm.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Extract Text
> Use [to_text()](../api/to_text) to get clean, plain text output stripped of all Markdown formatting.
## Overview
`to_text()` extracts the content of a document as a plain text string — no Markdown syntax, no bounding boxes, no metadata. It's the simplest output format and the right choice when your downstream tool doesn't need formatting or structure, just the words.
```python theme={null}
import pymupdf4llm
text = pymupdf4llm.to_text("document.pdf")
print(text)
```
***
## When to Use Plain Text
| Use Case | Recommended Format |
| ----------------------------- | ----------------------------------- |
| Search indexing | ✅ Plain text |
| Keyword extraction / NLP | ✅ Plain text |
| LLM summarisation (simple) | ✅ Plain text |
| RAG pipelines with chunking | ⚠️ Consider Markdown or page chunks |
| Preserving document structure | ❌ Use Markdown |
| Custom layout pipelines | ❌ Use JSON |
If you're feeding content into an LLM and document structure matters — headings, lists, tables — use `to_markdown()` instead. LLMs handle Markdown well and the added structure improves output quality.
***
## Page Selection
Extract only the pages you need:
```python theme={null}
text = pymupdf4llm.to_text("document.pdf", pages=[0, 1, 2])
```
***
## Page Chunks
As with `to_markdown()`, you can return a list of per-page dictionaries using `page_chunks=True`:
```python theme={null}
chunks = pymupdf4llm.to_text("document.pdf", page_chunks=True)
for chunk in chunks:
print(f"Page {chunk['metadata']}: {len(chunk['text'])} chars")
```
Each chunk contains a `text` object with the plain text for that page and a `metadata` dictionary with page number and document information.
***
## Saving to a File
Write the output to a `.txt` file using `pathlib`:
```python theme={null}
import pymupdf4llm
from pathlib import Path
text = pymupdf4llm.to_text("document.pdf")
Path("output.txt").write_text(text, encoding="utf-8")
```
***
## OCR Behaviour
Like `to_markdown()`, `to_text()` triggers OCR automatically on pages with no selectable text. To enable or disable auto-OCR capabilities:
```python theme={null}
# Enable OCR on all pages
text = pymupdf4llm.to_text("document.pdf", use_ocr=True)
# Disable OCR entirely
text = pymupdf4llm.to_text("document.pdf", use_ocr=False)
```
See [OCR](/python/guides/OCR) for a full walkthrough of OCR options and adaptors.
***
For the full API signature, see the [`to_text()` API reference](/python/api/to_text).
***
## Next Steps
Preserve structure and formatting for LLM pipelines.
Access bounding boxes and layout data for custom pipelines.
Write .md, .json, and .txt files with pathlib.
Control automatic OCR behaviour and adaptors.