Word to TXT
Extract the text of a Word document (.docx) to a plain .txt file, list numbers, tables and footnotes included
Your files stay with you. Conversion happens inside the browser; no file is ever uploaded to a server.
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How it works
A common case: you need the text of a Word document without formatting, for a web form, an email system, a translation tool or an AI assistant, but copy and paste loses the numbering or scrambles the tables. Tap or click the box to choose the .docx and press Convert to TXT; "contract.docx" arrives in your Downloads folder as "contract.txt". Each paragraph is one line. Word's automatic numbers are written into the text exactly as Word shows them, "1.", "2.", or "a)" and "1.1." in sub-items, indented by two spaces per level; bullets become •. Table rows come out as single lines with cells separated by tabs, so if you paste the text into Excel the cells land in columns. Footnote marks stay in the text as [1], and the footnote texts are listed at the end of the document under a line. Pictures are skipped, and the result line says how many. The file is UTF-8 with a byte order mark and Windows line endings, so accented letters and curly quotes display correctly even in older programs.
This tool is also known as docx to txt, word to txt, convert word to plain text, docx to text converter, extract text from docx.
What is TXT (plain text)?
A plain text file carries only characters and line breaks: no bold, no fonts, no pictures and no table borders. That simplicity makes it usable everywhere: form fields, email bodies, translation and analysis tools, AI assistants and legacy systems all accept .txt most reliably. Moving from Word to plain text means writing the information that would otherwise be lost, such as numbers, table separators and footnotes, into the text itself.
What is BOM (byte order mark)?
The BOM is a three-byte signature (EF BB BF) at the start of a UTF-8 file. It is not part of the text and is never displayed; it only tells the opening program that the file is UTF-8. Current programs guess correctly without it, but some older software treats an unsigned file as the local ANSI encoding and garbles accented letters. That is why this tool adds the signature.
Word to TXT vs. Word to HTML: what is the difference?
Both use the same Word reader; the difference is what the output is for. HTML keeps the structure as tags: a heading stays <h1>, a list <ul>, a table <table>, ready for a web page. TXT has no tags, so the structure is written into the text: numbers as prefixes, table cells separated by tabs, footnotes in square brackets. Choose HTML when the text is going on a website, and TXT when it is going into a form, an email or another program.
What copy and paste loses, and what this tool keeps
When you copy text from Word into a plain text field, automatic list numbers often disappear, because the number is not part of the text: Word generates it from a numbering rule on the fly. Table cells can also run together with nothing between them. This tool reads the numbering rules from inside the document and writes the numbers into the text: if the document shows "3.2.", the .txt says "3.2."; if an item starts with "a)", so does the line.
Footnotes sit at the bottom of the page in Word and usually do not come along when you copy. Here the footnote mark stays in the text as [1] and the footnote text is added at the end with the same number; endnotes follow in the same order. With tracked changes, text shown as deleted is left out and inserted text is kept, so the output is the document as it stands now.
Fields such as a table of contents, page numbers or dates give the result Word last calculated, not the field code. If the table of contents is out of date, update it in Word with F9 and save before converting.
- Paragraph → one line
- Shift+Enter line break → new line
- Numbered list → "1.", "a)", "1.2." prefix
- Bullet → •
- Table → tab-separated lines
- Footnote → [1] + text at the end
Line endings, encoding and honest limits
The output uses Windows line endings (CRLF) and starts with a UTF-8 signature (BOM). Notepad before the late-2018 Windows 10 update shows a file with LF-only line endings as a single line, and some older programs read unsigned UTF-8 as ANSI and turn é into é. CRLF and the signature prevent both problems. Mac, Linux and current Windows open the file correctly either way.
No blank line is added between paragraphs, which matches Word's own "Save as Plain Text". Empty paragraphs left in the document for spacing stay as empty lines.
Text boxes, headers and footers, comments and pictures are not carried over. The old .doc format (Word 97-2003) cannot be read; the tool recognises such a file and tells you how to save it as .docx in Word.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert a Word document to TXT?
Choose your .docx file on this page and press Convert to TXT. The text is extracted inside your browser and the .txt file goes to your Downloads folder. List numbers, table cells and footnotes are written out in a form that suits plain text.
How is this different from Word's "Save as Plain Text"?
The result is similar; the difference is setup and batch work. You do not need Word, it works on a phone, it converts several documents at once, always saves as UTF-8 (Word asks you for an encoding) and adds footnotes at the end with their numbers.
Why won't it open my .doc file?
.doc is the closed binary format of Word 97-2003 and is completely different from .docx. Open the file in Word, choose File → Save As → "Word Document (.docx)", then convert it here. LibreOffice can do the same with Save As.
Are my documents uploaded to a server?
No. The Word file is opened inside your browser and the text is extracted there; the document is never sent over the internet. Once the page has loaded, the tool keeps working offline.