Extract Links from PDF
Find and extract all hyperlinks and URLs embedded in PDF documents. Pull every reference, citation, and resource link from research papers, reports, and documentation.
PDFs often contain dozens or even hundreds of links — references in academic papers, resource URLs in reports, and hyperlinks in documentation. Extracting these links manually is tedious. PDF.it helps you pull all text content from PDFs, making it easy to find and compile every URL in your document.
- ✓ Extract visible URLs printed in PDF text
- ✓ Convert to Word to preserve clickable hyperlinks
- ✓ Use OCR for scanned documents with printed URLs
- ✓ No installation — extract links in your browser
Extract Content from PDFs
Convert your PDF to text to find all URLs and links embedded in the document. Works with any PDF that contains selectable text.
Find URLs in Research Papers
Academic papers and reports are packed with references. Convert the PDF to text and search for all URLs at once — perfect for literature reviews and fact-checking.
Extract References and Citations
Many PDFs include bibliography sections with URLs to cited works. Extract the full text to quickly compile a list of all referenced links for verification.
Audit Document Links
Before publishing or distributing a PDF, verify that all links are correct and active. Extract every URL, then check each one for broken links or outdated references.
How to Extract Links from a PDF
Upload your PDF
Use PDF.it's PDF to TXT converter
Download the text
Get the extracted text with all document content
Search for URLs
Find http://, https://, www. patterns
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I extract links from a PDF?
Convert your PDF to text using PDF.it's PDF to TXT tool. The extracted text will contain all visible URLs from the document. You can then search through the text for http://, https://, or www. patterns to find every link.
Can I extract hyperlinks that are hidden behind text?
Clickable hyperlinks embedded behind anchor text (like 'click here') require examining the PDF's link annotations. Converting to Word format preserves these hyperlinks, allowing you to see and click the actual URLs behind the text.
How do I extract links from a scanned PDF?
Scanned PDFs are images, so links aren't clickable or embedded as text. Use PDF.it's OCR Scanner first to convert the scanned pages to selectable text, then extract the text to find any URLs printed in the document.
Can I extract all links from a PDF at once?
Yes. Convert the entire PDF to text, then search for URL patterns. This captures all visible URLs throughout the document in one step. For hyperlinks behind anchor text, convert to Word first.
Why would I need to extract links from a PDF?
Common reasons include auditing references in research papers, checking for broken links in documentation, compiling resource lists from reports, verifying citations, and migrating content from PDFs to websites or databases.
What types of links can be found in PDFs?
PDFs can contain visible URL text (printed on the page), clickable hyperlinks behind anchor text, email mailto links, internal document links (jumping to other pages), and links to external files. The extraction method depends on the link type.