extract text from pdf

jeteve has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi wise monks.

I wonder what is the simpliest solution to extract text from pdf in perl.

Of course I can use pdftotext in command line, but it involves managing temporary files ..

So I'm looking for a pure perl solution (or linked to a C library)..

I had a look at PDF::API2 , but it's more dedicated to creation.

CAM::PDF seammt to fill my need, but I can't manage to use it to extract the text ..

I also had a look at SWISH, but it internally uses ... pdftotext :) ..

Any Idea ?

-- Nice photos of naked perl sources here !

Comment on extract text from pdf

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: extract text from pdf by fenLisesi (Priest) on Nov 08, 2006 at 12:54 UTC
CAM::PDF was recommended in the earlier thread How toread the contents of PDF Update: I tried a few things with this module. It works well with some pdf files, but seems to fail in various ways for others. I couldn't get it to work with a few simple pdf files I created and exported from OpenOffice. The module comes with a small script named getpdftext.pl that may help you. Cheers.	[reply]
Re: extract text from pdf by mk. (Friar) on Nov 08, 2006 at 13:10 UTC
have you tried File::Extract::PDF?! it uses CAM::PDF internally, but maybe you have better luck with it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *women.pm	[reply]
Re^2: extract text from pdf by jeteve (Pilgrim) on Nov 08, 2006 at 13:32 UTC
I did try both of those .. without success. I got a pdf I've created with openoffice and pdftotext is able to extract text from it, whereas CAM::PDF (or File::Extract::PDF) gives me messy characters. `[jerome@saab pdf]$ getpdftext.pl -v ~/faxTaxHabitation2005.pdf ! " # $ % # & ' ( " ) * + + + ...` [download] And pdftotext: `[jerome@saab pdf]$ pdftotext ~/faxTaxHabitation2005.pdf txt [jerome@saab pdf]$ tail txt Merci de bien vouloir me confirmer ces informations par retour de fax +afin que je puisse proceder au paiment le plus rapidement possible au + numero suivant : ************* Cordiales salutations. ...` [download] The ideal would be a perl module linked to the xpdf C code .. :) -- Nice photos of naked perl sources here !	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: extract text from pdf by Anonymous Monk on Nov 08, 2006 at 16:02 UTC
What do you mean "involved managing temporary files"? `open $fh, "pdftotext whatever.pdf - \|" or die; ... read text from $fh ...` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: extract text from pdf by LANTI (Sexton) on Apr 24, 2012 at 08:46 UTC
If I want just the PDFs text to use it for whatever (save it in a database, ...) I found this line quiete convenient: my $txt = `pdftotext whatever.pdf -` or die 'ERROR running pdftotext'; say $txt; [download] Or if the file-name is in a variable and the PDF-file contains umlauts or other non-ascii chars: my $command_line = qq{pdftotext -enc 'UTF-8' '$path' -}; my $text = `$command_line` or die 'ERROR running pdftotext'; [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: extract text from pdf by caelifer (Scribe) on Nov 08, 2006 at 15:39 UTC
Not really a Perl solution, but... Acrobat Reader 7 supports 'Save As Text' option. Why not to try this one out. Obviously, this wont work for documents made from images, but nothing short of OCR will. -BR	[reply]