Extract text from a pdf

GitHub Workflow Status , _(*1)

This package provides a class to extract text from a pdf., _(*2)

use Spatie\PdfToText\Pdf;

echo Pdf::getText('book.pdf'); //returns the text from the pdf

Spatie is a webdesign agency based in Antwerp, Belgium. You'll find an overview of all our open source projects on our website., _(*3)

Support us

, _(*4)

We invest a lot of resources into creating best in class open source packages. You can support us by buying one of our paid products., _(*5)

We highly appreciate you sending us a postcard from your hometown, mentioning which of our package(s) you are using. You'll find our address on our contact page. We publish all received postcards on our virtual postcard wall., _(*6)

Requirements

Behind the scenes this package leverages pdftotext. You can verify if the binary installed on your system by issueing this command:, _(*7)

which pdftotext

If it is installed it will return the path to the binary., _(*8)

To install the binary you can use this command on Ubuntu or Debian:, _(*9)

apt-get install poppler-utils

On a mac you can install the binary using brew, _(*10)

brew install poppler

If you're on RedHat, CentOS, Rocky Linux or Fedora use this:, _(*11)

yum install poppler-utils

Installation

You can install the package via composer:, _(*12)

composer require spatie/pdf-to-text

Usage

Extracting text from a pdf is easy., _(*13)

$text = (new Pdf())
    ->setPdf('book.pdf')
    ->text();

Or easier:, _(*14)

echo Pdf::getText('book.pdf');

By default the package will assume that the pdftotext command is located at /usr/bin/pdftotext. If it is located elsewhere pass its binary path to constructor, _(*15)

$text = (new Pdf('/custom/path/to/pdftotext'))
    ->setPdf('book.pdf')
    ->text();

or as the second parameter to the getText static method:, _(*16)

echo Pdf::getText('book.pdf', '/custom/path/to/pdftotext');

Sometimes you may want to use pdftotext options. To do so you can set them up using the setOptions method., _(*17)

$text = (new Pdf())
    ->setPdf('table.pdf')
    ->setOptions(['layout', 'r 96'])
    ->text()
;

or as the third parameter to the getText static method:, _(*18)

echo Pdf::getText('book.pdf', null, ['layout', 'opw myP1$$Word']);

Please note that successive calls to setOptions() will overwrite options passed in during previous calls., _(*19)

If you need to make multiple calls to add options (for example if you need to pass in default options when creating the Pdf object from a container, and then add context-specific options elsewhere), you can use the addOptions() method:, _(*20)

php $text = (new Pdf()) ->setPdf('table.pdf') ->setOptions(['layout', 'r 96']) ->addOptions(['f 1']) ->text() ;, _(*21)