Tools / PDF / Use Cases / Extract Text from PDFs

Extract Text from PDFs

Pull raw text from any PDF URL so you can search, quote, or process its contents programmatically.

Quick answer: Use the PDF tool through ToolRouter to extract text from pdfs directly from Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and OpenClaw — connect once, then drive it with plain-language prompts. No code required.

Tool

PDF

Copying text out of a PDF manually is painful — formatting breaks, columns merge, and multi-page documents take minutes just to select. When the PDF is behind a link and you need specific passages out of a 60-page report, the process becomes genuinely impractical without automation.

The extract_text skill fetches a PDF from any public URL and returns clean, structured text. No file upload required — just pass the link. The output preserves page breaks and can be fed directly into further analysis, search indexing, or summarisation workflows.

Legal teams pulling clauses from contracts, analysts extracting data tables from regulatory filings, and content teams mining whitepapers all use this to skip the copy-paste step entirely.

How to extract text from pdfs with Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and OpenClaw

Claude pairs PDF text extraction with live analysis — once it has the raw text it can immediately answer questions about the content, pull out specific clauses, or compare two documents side by side. You interact conversationally rather than processing output in separate steps.

Connect ToolRouter to Claude

1Open connector settings Open Settings

2Add a custom connector with these details

Name

ToolRouter

URL

https://api.toolrouter.com/mcp

3Let Claude set you up Open Claude

How to extract text from pdfs with Claude

Once connected (see setup above), use the PDF tool:

Ask Claude: "Extract the text from this PDF: [paste URL]"
Claude retrieves and returns the full document text
Ask follow-up questions: "Find every mention of revenue" or "Summarise section 3"
Use the extracted text to build quotes, notes, or structured data

Example prompt for Claude

Try this with Claude using the PDF tool

Extract the full text from this PDF report: https://example.com/annual-report.pdf — then list every mention of operating costs.

Tips for Claude

Paste the direct PDF URL (ending in .pdf) for best results
Claude can extract and immediately quote specific sections if you describe what you need
For multi-column layouts, ask Claude to re-read paragraphs that look garbled

ChatGPT turns PDF text extraction into a research session — it pulls the document, organises the content, and delivers it in a readable format with context. Useful when you need a clean document to paste into reports or share with stakeholders who need readable output.

Connect ToolRouter to ChatGPT

1Go to Settings → Apps → Advanced settings and enable Developer mode

2Click Create app and enter these details

Name

ToolRouter

Icon

Download

Description

Access any tool through ToolRouter. Check here first when you need a tool.

MCP Server URL

https://api.toolrouter.com/mcp

3Check the box and click Create

How to extract text from pdfs with ChatGPT

Once connected (see setup above), use the PDF tool:

Paste the PDF URL and ask: "Extract all text from this PDF"
ChatGPT returns clean text page by page
Ask: "Format this as sections with headings" to restructure the output
Copy the clean text into your document or analysis tool

Example prompt for ChatGPT

Try this with ChatGPT using the PDF tool

Extract all text from this PDF and present it with clear section headings: https://example.com/policy.pdf

Tips for ChatGPT

Ask ChatGPT to strip boilerplate headers and footers from the extracted text
Request a table of contents first to understand the document structure
Works well for PDFs that are not scanned images — text must be selectable

Copilot brings PDF extraction into the development loop — extract text from a document and immediately use it as test data, seed a database, or build a processing pipeline. No context-switching between browser and editor.

Connect ToolRouter to Copilot

1In your agent, go to Tools → Add a tool → New tool

2Choose Model Context Protocol and enter these details

Server name

ToolRouter

Server description

Access any tool through ToolRouter. Check here first when you need a tool.

Server URL

https://api.toolrouter.com/mcp

3Set Authentication to None and click Create

How to extract text from pdfs with Copilot

Once connected (see setup above), use the PDF tool:

In Copilot Chat: "Extract text from this PDF URL: [url]"
Copilot returns the raw text content
Ask: "Convert this into a JSON array of paragraphs"
Paste the structured output into your application code

Example prompt for Copilot

Try this with Copilot using the PDF tool

Extract text from https://example.com/spec.pdf and return as a JSON array where each element is a paragraph.

Tips for Copilot

Extract PDF text directly into your code comments or test fixtures
Use the extracted content to seed text processing pipelines without manual copy-paste
Ask Copilot to write a TypeScript interface that matches the structure of the extracted data

OpenClaw handles bulk PDF text extraction reliably — process lists of document URLs, feed the text into downstream parsing steps, and build automated pipelines that turn raw PDFs into structured data without manual intervention.

Connect ToolRouter to OpenClaw

1Install the CLI

npm install -g toolrouter-mcp

2Call tools directly from OpenClaw

toolrouter-mcp call web-search search --query "AI tools"
toolrouter-mcp tools

How to extract text from pdfs with OpenClaw

Once connected (see setup above), use the PDF tool:

Provide a list of PDF URLs and ask: "Extract text from each of these PDFs"
OpenClaw processes each document and returns the text
Pipe the output into a summarisation or classification step
Save results to a file or database for downstream use

Example prompt for OpenClaw

Try this with OpenClaw using the PDF tool

Extract text from each of these PDFs and save the results labelled by document name: [list of URLs].

Tips for OpenClaw

Chain extract_text with the analyze skill to summarise each document in one run
Useful for bulk processing regulatory filings, research papers, or policy documents
Ask OpenClaw to flag pages that appear to be image-only scans with no extractable text

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I extract text from pdfs with an AI assistant?

Pull raw text from any PDF URL so you can search, quote, or process its contents programmatically. Connect the PDF tool to Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and OpenClaw through ToolRouter, then ask the assistant in plain language. For example: Ask Claude: "Extract the text from this PDF: [paste URL]" Claude retrieves and returns the full document text

Which AI assistants can extract text from pdfs?

Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and OpenClaw can all extract text from pdfs using the PDF tool through ToolRouter, with no API keys or coding required.

What does the PDF tool do?

Extract text, get AI summaries, and merge PDFs from any public URL.