pdf to text

[tubby]

I know this question comes up a lot, so here goes again. I want to read
text from a PDF file, run re searches on the text, etc. I do not care
about layout, fonts, borders, etc. I just want the text. I've been
reading Adobe's PDF Reference Guide and I'm beginning to develop a
better understanding of PDF in general, but I need a bit of help... this
seems like it should be easier than it is. Here's some code:

import zlib

fp = open('test.pdf', 'rb')
bytes = []
while 1:
byte = fp.read(1)
#print byte
bytes.append(byte)
if not byte:
break

for byte in bytes:

op = open('pdf.txt', 'a')

dco = zlib.decompressobj()

try:
s = dco.decompress(byte)
#print >> op, s
print s
except Exception, e:
print e

op.close()

fp.close()

I know the text is compressed... that it would have stream and endstream
makers and BT (Begin Text) and ET (End Text) and that the uncompressed
text is enclosed in parenthesis (this is my text). Has anyone here done
this in a simple fashion? I've played with the pyPdf library some, but
it seems overly complex for my needs (merge PDFs, write PDFs, etc). I
just want a simple PDF text extractor.

Thanks

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Nils_Oliver_Kr=F6ger?=]

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have a look at the pdflib (www.pdflib.com). Their Text Extraction
Toolkit might be what you are looking for, though I'm not sure whether
you can use it detached from the pdflib itself.

hth

Nils

I know this question comes up a lot, so here goes again. I want to read
text from a PDF file, run re searches on the text, etc. I do not care
about layout, fonts, borders, etc. I just want the text. I've been
reading Adobe's PDF Reference Guide and I'm beginning to develop a
better understanding of PDF in general, but I need a bit of help... this
seems like it should be easier than it is. Here's some code:

import zlib

fp = open('test.pdf', 'rb')
bytes = []
while 1:
byte = fp.read(1)
#print byte
bytes.append(byte)
if not byte:
break

for byte in bytes:

op = open('pdf.txt', 'a')

dco = zlib.decompressobj()

try:
s = dco.decompress(byte)
#print >> op, s
print s
except Exception, e:
print e

op.close()

fp.close()

I know the text is compressed... that it would have stream and endstream
makers and BT (Begin Text) and ET (End Text) and that the uncompressed
text is enclosed in parenthesis (this is my text). Has anyone here done
this in a simple fashion? I've played with the pyPdf library some, but
it seems overly complex for my needs (merge PDFs, write PDFs, etc). I
just want a simple PDF text extractor.

Thanks

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[David Boddie]

I know this question comes up a lot, so here goes again. I want to read
text from a PDF file, run re searches on the text, etc. I do not care
about layout, fonts, borders, etc. I just want the text. I've been
reading Adobe's PDF Reference Guide and I'm beginning to develop a
better understanding of PDF in general, but I need a bit of help... this
seems like it should be easier than it is.

It _seems_ that way. ;-)

One of the more promising suggestions for a way to solve this came
up in a comp.lang.python thread last year:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/cb6c97a44ce4cbe9?dmode=source

Basically, if you have access to the pdftotext command on a system
that supports xpdf, you should be able to get something reasonable
out of a PDF file.

I know the text is compressed... that it would have stream and endstream
makers and BT (Begin Text) and ET (End Text) and that the uncompressed
text is enclosed in parenthesis (this is my text). Has anyone here done
this in a simple fashion? I've played with the pyPdf library some, but
it seems overly complex for my needs (merge PDFs, write PDFs, etc). I
just want a simple PDF text extractor.

The pdftotext tool may do what you want:

http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html

Let us know how you get on with it.

David

 

[tubby]

The pdftotext tool may do what you want:

http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html

Let us know how you get on with it.

I have used this tool. However, I need PDF read ability on Windows and
Linux and in the future Macs. pdftotext works great on Linux, but poorly
on Windows (100% sustained CPU usage, etc).

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll keep hammering away at a simple
Python solution to this. Over the years, I have come to loath Adobe's
Portable Document Format!

 

[tubby]

The pdftotext tool may do what you want:

http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html

Let us know how you get on with it.

David

Perhaps I'm just using pdftotext wrong? Here's how I was using it:

f = filename

try:
sout = os.popen('pdftotext "%s" - ' %f)
data = sout.read().strip()
print data
sout.close()

except Exception, e:
print e

 

[Lee Harr]

Perhaps I'm just using pdftotext wrong? Here's how I was using it:

sout = os.popen('pdftotext "%s" - ' %f)

If you are having trouble with popen (not unlikely)
how about just writing to a temporary file and
reading the text from there?

I've used pdftotext several times in the past few
weeks (but not on windows). It was a major
time saver for me.

 

[Dieter Deyke]

Perhaps I'm just using pdftotext wrong? Here's how I was using it:

f = filename

try:
sout = os.popen('pdftotext "%s" - ' %f)
data = sout.read().strip()
print data
sout.close()

except Exception, e:
print e

I am using pdftotext on Windows with cygwin on a regular basis without
any problem.

Your program above should read:

sout = os.popen('pdftotext "%s" - ' % (f,))

--
Dieter Deyke

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

 

[tubby]

Your program above should read:

sout = os.popen('pdftotext "%s" - ' % (f,))

What is the significance of doing it this way?

 

[Steve Holden]

What is the significance of doing it this way?

It's actually just nit-picking - as long as you know f is never going to
be a tuple then it's perfectly acceptable to use a single value as the
right-hand operand.

Of course, if f ever *is* a tuple (with more than one element) then you
will get an error:

>>> for f in ['string',

('one-element tuple', ),
("two-element", "tuple")]:
... print 'Nit: pdftotext "%s" - ' % (f,)
... print 'You: pdftotext "%s" - ' %f
...
Nit: pdftotext "string" -
You: pdftotext "string" -
Nit: pdftotext "('one-element tuple',)" -
You: pdftotext "one-element tuple" -
Nit: pdftotext "('two-element', 'tuple')" -
Traceback (most recent call last):

So there is potentially some value to it. But we often don't bother.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb http://del.icio.us/steve.holden
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