Extracting Text from a PDF File Using PDFminer in Python

Extracting text from a PDF file using PDFMiner in python?

Here is a working example of extracting text from a PDF file using the current version of PDFMiner(September 2016)

from pdfminer.pdfinterp import PDFResourceManager, PDFPageInterpreter
from pdfminer.converter import TextConverter
from pdfminer.layout import LAParams
from pdfminer.pdfpage import PDFPage
from io import StringIO

def convert_pdf_to_txt(path):
rsrcmgr = PDFResourceManager()
retstr = StringIO()
codec = 'utf-8'
laparams = LAParams()
device = TextConverter(rsrcmgr, retstr, codec=codec, laparams=laparams)
fp = open(path, 'rb')
interpreter = PDFPageInterpreter(rsrcmgr, device)
password = ""
maxpages = 0
caching = True
pagenos=set()

for page in PDFPage.get_pages(fp, pagenos, maxpages=maxpages, password=password,caching=caching, check_extractable=True):
interpreter.process_page(page)

text = retstr.getvalue()

fp.close()
device.close()
retstr.close()
return text

PDFMiner's structure changed recently, so this should work for extracting text from the PDF files.

Edit : Still working as of the June 7th of 2018. Verified in Python Version 3.x

Edit: The solution works with Python 3.7 at October 3, 2019. I used the Python library pdfminer.six, released on November 2018.

I want to extract text from a PDF to a .text file using PDFminer. I have found the code but I have no idea how to use it

If you use pdfminer and use the code from their page and read their documentation https://www.binpress.com/tutorial/manipulating-pdfs-with-python/167:

from cStringIO import StringIO
from pdfminer.pdfinterp import PDFResourceManager, PDFPageInterpreter
from pdfminer.converter import TextConverter
from pdfminer.layout import LAParams
from pdfminer.pdfpage import PDFPage

def convert(fname, pages=None):
if not pages:
pagenums = set()
else:
pagenums = set(pages)

output = StringIO()
manager = PDFResourceManager()
converter = TextConverter(manager, output, laparams=LAParams())
interpreter = PDFPageInterpreter(manager, converter)

infile = file(fname, 'rb')
for page in PDFPage.get_pages(infile, pagenums):
interpreter.process_page(page)
infile.close()
converter.close()
text = output.getvalue()
output.close
return text

i dont think you should have any trouble using:

def convert(fname, pages=None): which basically converts the pdf for you

use as follows:

some_variable = convert("filename.pdf") 
print(some_variable)
#do something with your variable

using your example pdf:
Sample Image

How to extract text and text coordinates from a PDF file?

Full disclosure, I am one of the maintainers of pdfminer.six. It is a community-maintained version of pdfminer for python 3.

Nowadays, pdfminer.six has multiple API's to extract text and information from a PDF. For programmatically extracting information I would advice to use extract_pages(). This allows you to inspect all of the elements on a page, ordered in a meaningful hierarchy created by the layout algorithm.

The following example is a pythonic way of showing all the elements in the hierachy. It uses the simple1.pdf from the samples directory of pdfminer.six.

from pathlib import Path
from typing import Iterable, Any

from pdfminer.high_level import extract_pages

def show_ltitem_hierarchy(o: Any, depth=0):
"""Show location and text of LTItem and all its descendants"""
if depth == 0:
print('element x1 y1 x2 y2 text')
print('------------------------------ --- --- --- ---- -----')

print(
f'{get_indented_name(o, depth):<30.30s} '
f'{get_optional_bbox(o)} '
f'{get_optional_text(o)}'
)

if isinstance(o, Iterable):
for i in o:
show_ltitem_hierarchy(i, depth=depth + 1)

def get_indented_name(o: Any, depth: int) -> str:
"""Indented name of LTItem"""
return ' ' * depth + o.__class__.__name__

def get_optional_bbox(o: Any) -> str:
"""Bounding box of LTItem if available, otherwise empty string"""
if hasattr(o, 'bbox'):
return ''.join(f'{i:<4.0f}' for i in o.bbox)
return ''

def get_optional_text(o: Any) -> str:
"""Text of LTItem if available, otherwise empty string"""
if hasattr(o, 'get_text'):
return o.get_text().strip()
return ''

path = Path('~/Downloads/simple1.pdf').expanduser()

pages = extract_pages(path)
show_ltitem_hierarchy(pages)

The output shows the different elements in the hierarchy. The bounding box for each. And the text that this element contains.

element                        x1  y1  x2  y2   text
------------------------------ --- --- --- ---- -----
generator
LTPage 0 0 612 792
LTTextBoxHorizontal 100 695 161 719 Hello
LTTextLineHorizontal 100 695 161 719 Hello
LTChar 100 695 117 719 H
LTChar 117 695 131 719 e
LTChar 131 695 136 719 l
LTChar 136 695 141 719 l
LTChar 141 695 155 719 o
LTChar 155 695 161 719
LTAnno
LTTextBoxHorizontal 261 695 324 719 World
LTTextLineHorizontal 261 695 324 719 World
LTChar 261 695 284 719 W
LTChar 284 695 297 719 o
LTChar 297 695 305 719 r
LTChar 305 695 311 719 l
LTChar 311 695 324 719 d
LTAnno
LTTextBoxHorizontal 100 595 161 619 Hello
LTTextLineHorizontal 100 595 161 619 Hello
LTChar 100 595 117 619 H
LTChar 117 595 131 619 e
LTChar 131 595 136 619 l
LTChar 136 595 141 619 l
LTChar 141 595 155 619 o
LTChar 155 595 161 619
LTAnno
LTTextBoxHorizontal 261 595 324 619 World
LTTextLineHorizontal 261 595 324 619 World
LTChar 261 595 284 619 W
LTChar 284 595 297 619 o
LTChar 297 595 305 619 r
LTChar 305 595 311 619 l
LTChar 311 595 324 619 d
LTAnno
LTTextBoxHorizontal 100 495 211 519 H e l l o
LTTextLineHorizontal 100 495 211 519 H e l l o
LTChar 100 495 117 519 H
LTAnno
LTChar 127 495 141 519 e
LTAnno
LTChar 151 495 156 519 l
LTAnno
LTChar 166 495 171 519 l
LTAnno
LTChar 181 495 195 519 o
LTAnno
LTChar 205 495 211 519
LTAnno
LTTextBoxHorizontal 321 495 424 519 W o r l d
LTTextLineHorizontal 321 495 424 519 W o r l d
LTChar 321 495 344 519 W
LTAnno
LTChar 354 495 367 519 o
LTAnno
LTChar 377 495 385 519 r
LTAnno
LTChar 395 495 401 519 l
LTAnno
LTChar 411 495 424 519 d
LTAnno
LTTextBoxHorizontal 100 395 211 419 H e l l o
LTTextLineHorizontal 100 395 211 419 H e l l o
LTChar 100 395 117 419 H
LTAnno
LTChar 127 395 141 419 e
LTAnno
LTChar 151 395 156 419 l
LTAnno
LTChar 166 395 171 419 l
LTAnno
LTChar 181 395 195 419 o
LTAnno
LTChar 205 395 211 419
LTAnno
LTTextBoxHorizontal 321 395 424 419 W o r l d
LTTextLineHorizontal 321 395 424 419 W o r l d
LTChar 321 395 344 419 W
LTAnno
LTChar 354 395 367 419 o
LTAnno
LTChar 377 395 385 419 r
LTAnno
LTChar 395 395 401 419 l
LTAnno
LTChar 410 395 424 419 d
LTAnno

(Similar answer
here,
here and
here
, I'll try to keep them in sync.)

How to use pdfminer to extract text from PDF files stored in S3 bucket without downloading it locally?

Instead of

get_pages(fh,caching=True, check_extractable=True):

you could have:

get_pages(io.BytesIO(fs), caching=True, check_extractable=True):

By the way, you are still downloading the objects from S3, but not physically saving them on your local hard drive.



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