Using Command Line Switches to Save a PDF as Text - Can it be done?

Is this possible? If so, then does anyone know how to do this?

Ugh, please pay more attention to your tagging in the future. Categorize your question. Don't try to summarize it. Each tag should stand on it's own.

Not sure which OS you are running, but there is a tool called "pdftotext" that seems to do what you want. It's available in Linux, but there may be comparable tools for other operating systems.

I'm sorry, I neglected to mention the operating system. This is Windows. I have heard of this tool; unfortunately buying a solution is not an option - hence we are left with building one. Thanks though!

5 Answers 5

It is a npm package and you need to install nodejs (and npm) to use it.

It can be used as a command line tool:

npm install -g easy-pdf-parser pdf2text test.pdf > test.txt 

And this tool will sort text lines by their y coordinates, so it works great at most case. And it also works well with unicode and cross platform.

I don't understand why you'd not want to use free software (not freeware), pdftotext is the ideal solution. However, if you just want to actually open and save the PDF in an automated fashion using the Windows GUI, you could use vbscript and the sendkeys command.

Just use pdftotext though, it would be much more reliable and won't cost you a whole box.

Thanks - I was thinking about doing the 'SENDKEYS' method but wanted to see if there was something quick and dirty. Yes, our environment places tight restrictions on acceptable software. Using Python (which is approved) may also be an option.

+1 - for one should always use the google "site:http: //stackoverflow.com" <> to save some 5 minutes of crap ware advertisements, because clever guys like you have posted already the answer . Commented Jun 7, 2012 at 9:40

The problem with using open source software is that it might not be compatible with your closed-source project, or even if it is then your employer may have blanket policies that prohibit use of open source to avoid potential misunderstandings of the licenses and thus legal problems. I worked for a company who had this policy because although they knew it was almost always fine, they didn't want to take the risk of being forced to release proprietary source code

Don't use CMD; use AutoIt. Very easy to do and takes a few lines

Run("file.pdf") winwait("Adobe") send(?);; whatever commands necessary to save as text send("") send("!") 

I think the below VBscript should do the trick. It will take all .pdf files in a given folder location and save them as .txt files. One major bummer is it only works if your machine is not locked since it uses the SendKeys command. If anyone has a solution that works while a computer is locked, please send it my way!

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") objStartFolder = "PATH_OF_ALL_PDFS_YOU_WANT_TO_CONVERT_HERE" Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(objStartFolder) Set colFiles = objFolder.Files For Each objFile In colFiles extension = Mid(objFile.Name, Len(objFile.Name) - 3, 4) file = Mid(objFile.Name, 1, Len(objFile.Name) - 4) fullname = objFSO.BuildPath(objStartFolder, objFile.Name) fullname_txt = objFSO.BuildPath(objStartFolder, file + ".txt") Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") If extension = ".pdf" And Not objFSO.FileExists(fullname_txt) Then WScript.Echo fullname Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") WshShell.Run """" + fullname + """" WScript.Sleep 1000 WshShell.SendKeys "%" WScript.Sleep 100 WshShell.SendKeys "f" WScript.Sleep 100 WshShell.SendKeys "h" WScript.Sleep 100 WshShell.SendKeys "x" WScript.Sleep 300 WshShell.SendKeys "" count = 0 'this little step prevents the loop from moving on to the next .pdf before the conversion to .txt is complete Do While i = 0 And count < 100 On Error Resume Next Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set MyFile = fso.OpenTextFile(fullname_txt, 8) If Err.Number = 0 Then i = 1 End If count = count + 1 WScript.Sleep 20000 Loop End If Next