convert pdf to text

Using either Automator, or Shortcuts in macOS Monterey 12.* and later, one can extract the Rich Text (RTF), or plain text from an ordinary PDF that was generated by an application and not scanned. There is an action in Shortcuts that can extract the text from an image, but not from a PDF that was scanned, as that would require dedicated Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to extract that text content.

Do you want Rich Text (e.g. colored text, underlines, bold, etc.) or really just plain text from the selected PDF? Is this content to go into Pages, or if you knew that Microsoft Word v16.31 or later can convert PDF to a formatted Word Docx document, would that be a solution to be later opened in Pages?

Let me know whether you want RTF or plain text, or you have decided to use MS Word, whether your copy or performed on another person's Mac. I can roll up a Shortcuts tool for either format or even a short AppleScript. Would the ability to select the PDF in the Finder and then perform the extraction be sufficient?

The paid version of Adobe Acrobat can do that. As long as the formatting isn’t complex, it works quite well. If you only need to do this once, you could probably just pay for one month’s subscription. If you need to do it regularly, you might want to look at the annual subscription.

Your best tool for this might be a text recognition application that can 'look at' the image, extract the text and return the character codes to the computer which can then 'print' the characters and interpret them as words or numbers. That is a talent not yet available (or not yet known to me) in pages.

Or you could read the text on the image and rely on the Dictation feature of your machine to convert your pronunciation into print.

PDF is an image file format. The pdf file does not contain the text, just a set of instruction telling your Mac (or your neighbour's Windows computer where to put the dots to recreate the image of those characters on your (or their) screen, or on a sheet of paper.

Regards,

Barry

Someday I really have to learn more about Automator and Shortcuts….. I’m trying to convince Alancito to write a book.

Depending on how or if the OP responds, you may see an example of a Shortcut here…

I keep notes of the examples Alancito gives.