How to Extract Plain Text From an EPUB File

Sometimes you only want the words of an e-book: to search them, to quote a passage, or to paste a chapter into a note-taking app. The EPUB to Text tool strips the markup and gives you clean text.

Quick answer

Add the EPUB, and copy the result or save it as a .txt file. Images, styles and navigation are left out.

Why plain text

• Searching with any editor or command line.
• Quoting without formatting problems.
• Word counts and reading-time estimates.
• Text-to-speech engines that read plain input.
• Machine translation or study tools that need raw text.

Steps

1. Open the tool.
2. Choose the EPUB file.
3. Copy the text or press download for a TXT file.

Things to know

• Chapter order follows the book's reading order.
• Footnotes and tables may appear as simple lines of text.
• DRM-protected books cannot be opened.
• Large books can be several megabytes of text; paste into an editor that handles big files.

Tips

• Use the word counter to measure the length.
• To keep headings and layout, use EPUB to Word or EPUB to PDF.
• Respect copyright: use text only as the licence of the book allows.

Processing is local; the file does not leave your device.