For command line users, there is pdftotext available. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/unix_commands/pdftotext.htm A suitable entry in mailcap would enable its use.
## Plain text text/plain; gedit %s; test=RunningX; text/plain; nano %s; # ## Images image/bmp; fbi %s; image/gif; fbi %s; image/jpeg; fbi %s; image/png; fbi %s; image/tiff; fbi %s; image/webp; fbi %s; # ## Formatted Documents application/msword; antiword -f %s; copiousoutput; application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document; docx2txt.sh %s; copiousoutput; application/rtf; unrtf --text %s; copiousoutput; application/pdf; pdftotext --text %s; copiousoutput; David