DOCX to TXT Converter
Strip a Word document down to its words. The converter writes a clean .txt file in the encoding and line-ending style your next program expects, ready for search tools, translation software, scripts or a chat window.
Document Converter
or drop PDF, DOC, DOCX … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
150 DPI turns an A4 page into about 1240 × 1754 px. Use 300 for printing.
Convert the whole file or only some pages or slides (PDF and presentation input).
Pages or slides to convert, e.g. 1-3, 5, 8-10.
UTF-8 works for every language. Choose UTF-8 with BOM if Excel or Notepad on Windows shows garbled characters; legacy encodings only for old software.
LF for macOS, Linux and code editors; CRLF for older Windows programs such as classic Notepad.
Comma is standard. Use semicolon for Excel in countries that write decimals with a comma (Germany, France, Brazil).
Excel input with several sheets: convert all of them (one section or file per sheet) or only the first.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload your DOCX files
Drop one document or a batch of up to 20, each up to 95 MB. Older .doc, .docm and .dotx files are accepted too.
- 2
Pick encoding and line endings
Convert to is Plain text with Formatting on Text only. Under Advanced settings, keep Text encoding on UTF-8 unless an old program needs a code page, and choose CRLF in Line endings for classic Windows tools.
- 3
Convert to TXT
Press Convert to Plain text and download one .txt per document, or all of them together in a ZIP.
Upload the Word file, keep Formatting on Text only and press Convert to Plain text for a .txt with every word, in UTF-8 unless you choose another encoding.
Why get plain text out of a Word document
A DOCX file is a ZIP archive of XML parts. The words sit in word/document.xml, wrapped in run and paragraph tags, next to style sheets, numbering definitions, images and relationships. Programs that only want the text have to unpack all of that first, and many simply refuse the file.
That is where plain text helps. Researchers loading interviews into a text-analysis tool, translators quoting by character count, developers feeding documents to a script and editors pasting copy into a content system all need the words without the wrapping. Word can do it one file at a time through Save As and its File Conversion dialog; the converter does the same for a whole batch and lets you set the encoding once.
Text from other sources goes the same way: HTML to TXT cleans saved web pages, and slide decks have their own route.
Choosing the encoding and line endings for your TXT file
The default and the right choice for almost everything. It covers every script, from accented Latin to Hangul and emoji, and it is what web tools, Git, Python and modern editors expect.
- Windows Notepad has saved UTF-8 without a BOM by default since Windows 10 version 1903
- Pair with LF line endings for macOS, Linux and code
UTF-8 plus three marker bytes at the start of the file. Use it when a Windows program shows accented letters as é or similar garbage.
- Some Unix tools print the BOM as a stray character
- Pair with CRLF for classic Windows software
Windows-1252, ISO-8859-1, Shift_JIS, GB18030 and EUC-KR exist for software written before Unicode. Characters outside the chosen code page cannot be stored.
- Only pick one when a program documents that it needs it
- plus .docm and .dotx
- .docx .doc
- text encodings to choose
- 8
- line-ending styles
- LF / CRLF
- until files are deleted
- 30 min
DOCX
Microsoft Word document
DOCX is Microsoft Word's default document format since Office 2007, based on the Office Open XML standard (ECMA-376, ISO/IEC 29500). It is a ZIP package of XML files holding text, styles, images, tables, comments and tracked changes. It is the most common format for editable documents in offices, schools and job applications. Layout can shift slightly between Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice and Pages, especially with complex formatting. Most word processors open DOCX files.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 2007 · Microsoft
TXT
Plain text
A TXT file contains only plain characters with no formatting, fonts, images or layout. Modern text files are usually encoded in UTF-8, which covers every language, though older files may use other encodings and show garbled characters. Plain text is tiny, never becomes obsolete and opens on every device, from phones to servers. It cannot hold bold text, tables or pictures, so structure must be expressed with spacing or simple markup.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- –
DOCX is reduced to TXT when only the words matter to the next step: a corpus or search index, a translation quote that counts characters, a script that parses lines, or a form field that rejects anything but plain text.
What a TXT file drops from your DOCX
- Plain textTXT · text/plain
- A file of characters and line breaks only, with no fonts, sizes, colors, images or page layout. Its meaning depends entirely on the encoding used to turn bytes back into characters.
Everything visual goes: bold, italics, fonts, page breaks, headers, columns, images and charts. Numbered and bulleted lists keep their words, paragraphs keep their order and stay separated by line breaks. Pictures can still be kept as files beside the text by switching Include images on, which bundles them with the TXT in a ZIP.
DOCX to TXT questions
Does the text file include deleted text from tracked changes?
No. With Include comments off you get the document as it reads after all changes are accepted: insertions are in, deletions are gone, and comment balloons are left out. Turn the option on only if you want reviewer comments written into the text.
What happens to tables in the Word document?
Each table row becomes a line of text with the cell contents in reading order. That keeps every word but loses the grid, so a document built mainly from tables is better served by DOCX to HTML, which keeps them as real tables.
Which encoding should I pick for an old Windows program?
Try UTF-8 with BOM first; the three marker bytes tell many Windows programs that the file is UTF-8. If the program predates Unicode, choose Windows-1252 for Western European text, Shift_JIS for Japanese, GB18030 for Chinese or EUC-KR for Korean.
Why convert to TXT before pasting into an AI assistant or translation tool?
Copying from Word can carry hidden formatting, smart quotes, soft hyphens and invisible field codes along with the words. A plain-text file gives the tool exactly the characters on the page, and its character count matches what a translation quote or token limit will see.
Can I keep headings marked in some way?
Plain text has no headings, only lines. If you need headings to stay recognizable, convert to Markdown instead; DOCX to Markdown writes them as # lines that still read naturally as text.