From: tubby on
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
From: Nils Oliver Kröger on
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Hash: SHA1

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

tubby schrieb:
> 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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From: David Boddie on
On Thursday 25 January 2007 22:05, tubby wrote:

> 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
From: tubby on
David Boddie wrote:
> 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!
From: tubby on
David Boddie wrote:

> 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
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