PDF to HTML

Convert your PDF files to HTML, right here in your browser.

Free
Private
No limits
No upload

... or drop files here

Files never leave your device

Add a PDF file to convert.

Frequently asked questions

What is actually inside a HTML file?

A .html file is a tree of tags describing what each piece of content is — a heading, a list, a table — and leaves the appearance to whatever renders it.

Are my files uploaded to a server?

No. Your PDF is read and the HTML file is built entirely inside your browser, so nothing ever leaves your device.

Can I convert several files at once?

Yes. Add as many PDF files as you like and download the results one by one, or all together as a ZIP archive.

Will the result look exactly like the original PDF?

The text, headings and table columns are recovered and rebuilt as a HTML file. This is a content-faithful conversion rather than a copy of the original page design, so fonts, spacing and images are not carried over.

What happens with a scanned PDF?

A scanned page is a picture of text rather than text itself, so there is nothing to extract from it. Convert it to an image format instead, or run it through OCR first.

Is there a file size or file count limit?

No. Everything runs on your own device, so the only practical limit is how much memory your browser has available.

Do I need to install anything?

No. There is nothing to install and no account to create — the converter runs in any modern browser, on desktop and mobile alike.

Is it one HTML file or many?

One, with everything in it. The styles are inline and there are no external references, so you can email it, open it locally, or drop it on a server without anything else needing to travel with it.

Are the headings real HTML headings?

Yes — proper `<h1>` and `<h2>` elements, detected by comparing each line's type size to the document's body size. That is what makes the output navigable by screen reader and meaningful to search engines, rather than paragraphs that merely look like headings.

Do images come through?

No. The output has no `<img>` elements, because including them would mean either writing separate image files alongside the HTML or inlining them as data, and a single self-contained file is more useful for most purposes. Use Extract PDF images to pull them out at full resolution.

Can I publish this on a website?

Yes. It is a valid, self-contained HTML document with no external dependencies. You will almost certainly want to replace the built-in stylesheet with your own — it is deliberately minimal, a readable default rather than a design — and to check the reading order first.

Is this better than a PDF for accessibility?

Generally yes. PDFs are hard for screen readers unless they were carefully tagged when created, which most were not, and their reading order can be arbitrary. HTML with real headings gives a navigable outline and text that reflows to any size. It is a much better starting point — though the multi-column limitation and the absence of images still apply.

Why is my two-column paper mixed up?

Because reading order is rebuilt from geometry, and no purely geometric rule tells a two-column page apart from a wide table. Both look like text on the left and text on the right. Multi-column documents interleave as a result, which is a real limit of the approach rather than a bug.

A PDF is designed for paper. It has a fixed page size, fixed margins and text at fixed positions, which is exactly right for printing and exactly wrong for reading on a phone — hence the pinching and dragging that reading a PDF on a small screen involves.

HTML is the opposite: text that reflows to whatever is displaying it. Converting one to the other turns a fixed-page document into something that reads properly at any width, works with a screen reader, and can be styled, searched or embedded like any other web page.

The output here is a single self-contained .html file. Each PDF page becomes a `<section>` labelled with its page number, headings are detected by relative type size and written as real `<h1>` and `<h2>` elements, and everything else becomes a paragraph. A small stylesheet is included inline, setting a readable measure of about 46rem and marking page boundaries with a rule — so the file opens in a browser looking like a document rather than like unstyled markup.

How to convert PDF to HTML

Add your PDF
Drop it in or choose it. It is read in the page and never uploaded.
Convert
Text is extracted with coordinates, rebuilt into lines, classified into headings and paragraphs by size, and written as one HTML document with its styles included.
Open or publish it
Double-click to open it in a browser, or drop it onto a web server. It has no external dependencies — no stylesheet to link, no fonts to load, nothing to fetch.

What the markup looks like

One section per page: Each `<section>` carries an aria-label naming its page number, so the original pagination remains addressable and a screen reader can announce it, while the text itself reflows freely.
Real heading elements: Lines at least half again the document's body size become `<h1>`, those about a fifth larger become `<h2>`. These are semantic headings, which is what makes the document navigable by assistive technology and legible to search engines.
Paragraphs: Every other line becomes a `<p>`.
Escaped text: Angle brackets and ampersands in your document are escaped properly, so a PDF containing code or an email address does not produce broken markup.
Inline styles: A short stylesheet in the head sets a readable measure, comfortable line height, a system font stack and a rule between pages. It is deliberately minimal — a starting point to replace, not a design.
Images: Not included. There are no `<img>` elements, because the images would have to be extracted and written as separate files or inlined as data, and a single self-contained document is the more useful default. Extract PDF images gets them at full resolution.

Why this is the accessible format

PDFs are notoriously difficult for screen readers. Unless a document was carefully tagged when it was made — and most are not — the reading order a screen reader gets is whatever order the glyphs happen to be stored in, which can be nothing like the visual order.

HTML with real headings and paragraphs is a far better starting point. The heading elements give a document outline that can be navigated by heading, the text reflows to any font size the reader chooses, and there is no fixed page geometry to fight.

It is worth being clear that this is a better starting point rather than a finished accessible document — the reading-order limits below still apply, and images being absent means any information they carried is gone. But for making a fixed-page document readable on a phone or by a screen reader, it is a substantial improvement over the PDF.

Known limits

Multi-column layouts interleave. Reading order is reconstructed geometrically — down the page, then across — and no geometric rule distinguishes a two-column page from a wide table. Academic papers in two columns come out mixed.

Tables come through as paragraphs rather than as `<table>` markup, so tabular data loses its grid. PDF to Excel is the better route for that.

Headings marked by weight rather than size are not detected, since there is no size difference to measure. And a scanned PDF produces an empty document, because there is no text layer to read.

About the HTML format

.html is the markup format Tim Berners-Lee introduced in 1993. It is published as an open specification under the name WHATWG HTML, so a file can be read without the program that wrote it.

A .html file is a tree of tags describing what each piece of content is — a heading, a list, a table — and leaves the appearance to whatever renders it.

Files like this usually come out of Chrome, Firefox, and VS Code.

What comes through

heading levels
body text
table rows and columns
bulleted and numbered lists
reading order

What does not

the exact page design
embedded images
embedded fonts

Worth knowing

A scanned PDF is a picture of a page, not text, so there is nothing for this tool to extract — the result will be empty. That is the honest outcome, not a failure.
This conversion is content-faithful, not pixel-faithful: text, heading levels and table columns survive, the original page design does not.

Information