Category: Python

Reference: http://okfnlabs.org/blog/2016/04/19/pdf-tools-extract-text-and-data-from-pdfs.html

I already tested and installed a few good open source code, like pdfparser, pdfbox and pdfminer.

PDFPARSER:

1. clone from https://github.com/smalot/pdfparser
2. composer install
3. test by creating a new file index.php in /works/pdfparser/index.php
   
   <?php ini_set('display_errors', 1); ini_set('display_startup_errors', 1); error_reporting(E_ALL); // Include Composer autoloader if not already done. //include 'vendor/autoload.php'; require_once('vendor/autoload.php'); // Parse pdf file and build necessary objects. $parser = new \Smalot\PdfParser\Parser(); $pdf = $parser->parseFile('export1.pdf'); //$pdf = $parser->parseFile('samples/Document1_foxitreader.pdf'); $pages = $pdf->getPages(); // Loop over each page to extract text. foreach ($pages as $page) { echo nl2br($page->getText()); //echo $page->getText(); } ?>

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   <?php     ini_set('display_errors', 1);     ini_set('display_startup_errors', 1);     error_reporting(E_ALL);       // Include Composer autoloader if not already done.     //include 'vendor/autoload.php';     require_once('vendor/autoload.php');     // Parse pdf file and build necessary objects.     $parser = new \Smalot\PdfParser\Parser();     $pdf    = $parser->parseFile('export1.pdf');     //$pdf    = $parser->parseFile('samples/Document1_foxitreader.pdf');     $pages  = $pdf->getPages();     // Loop over each page to extract text.     foreach ($pages as $page) {         echo nl2br($page->getText());         //echo $page->getText();     } ?>

   
   NOT GOOD!

PDFBOX:

1. clone from https://github.com/schmengler/PdfBox
2. composer install
3. download jarfile  from http://pdfbox.apache.org/index.html (pdfbox-app-2.4.0.jar)
   then move it to /usr/bin
4. test by creating a new file index.php in /works/PdfBox/index.php
   
   <?php ini_set('display_errors', 1); ini_set('display_startup_errors', 1); error_reporting(E_ALL); // Include Composer autoloader if not already done. //include 'vendor/autoload.php'; require_once('vendor/autoload.php'); //use SGH\PdfBox; //$pdf = GENERATED_PDF; $converter = new \SGH\PdfBox\PdfBox(); $converter->setPathToPdfBox('/usr/bin/pdfbox-app-2.4.0.jar'); //$text = $converter->textFromPdfStream($pdf); $text = $converter->textFromPdfFile('export1.pdf'); echo $text; ?>

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   <?php     ini_set('display_errors', 1);     ini_set('display_startup_errors', 1);     error_reporting(E_ALL);       // Include Composer autoloader if not already done.     //include 'vendor/autoload.php';     require_once('vendor/autoload.php');     //use SGH\PdfBox;       //$pdf = GENERATED_PDF;     $converter = new \SGH\PdfBox\PdfBox();     $converter->setPathToPdfBox('/usr/bin/pdfbox-app-2.4.0.jar');     //$text = $converter->textFromPdfStream($pdf);     $text = $converter->textFromPdfFile('export1.pdf');     echo $text; ?>

   
   BUT NEVER WORKS BECAUSE ALWAYS COMPLAIN ABOUT ‘RUNTIME ERROR CANNOT ACCESS JARFILE’. ALREADY SET PERMISSION BUT THE ERROR STILL PERSIST. SO I RUN THE JAR VIA TERMINAL (READ: http://pdfbox.apache.org/2.0/commandline.html)
   
   java -jar pdfbox-app-2.4.0.jar ExtractText export1.pdf

   1	java -jar pdfbox-app-2.4.0.jar ExtractText export1.pdf

   
   BUT NOT GOOD!

PDFMINER INSTALLATION:
It use python 2.7

1. clone from the source (https://github.com/euske/pdfminer/)
   
   teddy@teddy-K43SJ:~/Documents/python$ git clone https://github.com/euske/pdfminer.git

   1	teddy@teddy-K43SJ:~/Documents/python$ git clone https://github.com/euske/pdfminer.git

2. Run setup.py
   
   teddy@teddy-K43SJ:~/Documents/python$ sudo python setup.py install

   1	teddy@teddy-K43SJ:~/Documents/python$ sudo python setup.py install

   
   Here I have to use ‘sudo’ to install because I got permission problem without it
3. Test
   
   teddy@teddy-K43SJ:~/Documents/python$ pdf2txt.py -o export1.txt export1.pdf

   1	teddy@teddy-K43SJ:~/Documents/python$ pdf2txt.py -o export1.txt export1.pdf

   
   BEST OF THE OTHERS BUT STILL NOT GOOD! SELECT ALL THE TEXT THEN COPY PASTE STILL BETTER!

I TRIED TO INSTALL TESSERACT BUT EVEN WORSE THEN ABOVE!!!