Convert a pdf file to text in C# [closed]

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For .NET 8 what helped me is iText library: const string path = "***"; using var reader = new PdfReader(path); var pdf = new PdfDocument(reader); var builder = new StringBuilder(); for (int i = 1; i <= pdf.GetNumberOfPages(); i++) < var pageText = PdfTextExtractor.GetTextFromPage(pdf.GetPage(i)); builder.Append(pageText); >pdf.Close(); var result = builder.ToString();

6 Answers 6

Ghostscript could do what you need. Below is a command for extracting text from a pdf file into a txt file (you can run it from a command line to test if it works for you):

gswin32c.exe -q -dNODISPLAY -dSAFER -dDELAYBIND -dWRITESYSTEMDICT -dSIMPLE -c save -f ps2ascii.ps "test.pdf" -c quit >"test.txt" 

Check here: codeproject: Convert PDF to Image Using Ghostscript API for details on how to use ghostscript with C#

tanks. it's working, but there is a problem, it's not saving to the txt file, it's just create it and it's remain empty..why isn't it work? i runned it like that: C:\>C:\gswin32.exe -q -dNODISPLAY -dSAFER -dDELAYBIND -dWRITESYSTEMDICT -d -c save -f ps2ascii.ps "C:\New Folder\2\test.pdf" -c quit >"c:\test.txt"

if you would run it like this: gswin32.exe "C:\New Folder\2\test.pdf" will it show you the file? also you might want to try running it from the bin folder of the gs, smth like this: C:\Program Files\gs\gs8.64\bin>gswin32c.exe . in any case gs should give you an error if it can't find\parse your file, pls, post it up here if still no luck converting your file

i tried to do: C:\Program Files\gs\gs8.64\bin>gswin32.exe "C:\New Folder\2\test.pdf" and the program told me that it can't parse the file (but it showed me the pdf file) which is wierd, because when i did gswin32.exe -q -dNODISPLAY -dSAFER -dDELAYBIND -dWRITESYSTEMDICT -dSIMPLE -c save -f ps2ascii.ps "c:\test.pdf" > "c:\test.txt" it did convert it, the only problen is that it create the file but don't write into it. is this suppose to work in windows?

it has to work on windows and works fine for me; there are could be problems with parsing pdf files but ususally you get an error message from gs with an explanation of what is missing or broken; can you post up your pdf file somewere on file sharing service so I could try converting it

megafileupload.com/en/file/170875/test-pdf.html there is the link for the file i want to convert. i don't think u will have a problem to convert it, i succeeded to convert it, but the problem is that it not svaing it to the txt file there is the command again: gswin32.exe -q -dNODISPLAY -dSAFER -dDELAYBIND -dWRITESYSTEMDICT -dSIMPLE -c save -f ps2ascii.ps "c:\test.pdf" > "c:\test.txt"

I've had the need myself and I used this article to get me started: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/string/pdf2text.aspx

This codeproject article uses ITextSharp which now requires you to purchase a license if used commercially. See stackoverflow.com/questions/11324687/…

The concept of converting PDF to text is not really straight forward and you wont see anyone posting a code here that will convert PDF to text straight. So your best bet now is to use a library that would do the job for you. a good one is PDFBox, you can google it. You'll probably find it written in java but fortunately you can use IKVM to convert it to .Net.

As an alternative to Don's solution there I found the following:

Docotic.Pdf library can extract text from PDF files (formatted or not).

Here is a sample code that shows how to extract formatted text from a PDF file and save it to an other file.

public static void ExtractFormattedText(string pdfFile, string textFile) < using (PdfDocument doc = new PdfDocument(pdfFile)) < string text = doc.GetTextWithFormatting(); File.WriteAllText(textFile, text); >> 

Also, there is an article on our site that shows other options for extraction of text from PDF files.

Disclaimer: I work for Bit Miracle, vendor of the library.

But its a simple conversion. I was needed converstion to articles were the PDF file is in diffrentes layouts.

 public void PDF_TEXT() < richTextBox1.Text = string.Empty; ReadPdfFile(@"C:\Myfile.pdf"); //read pdf file from location >public void ReadPdfFile(string fileName) < string strText = string.Empty; StringBuilder text = new StringBuilder(); try < PdfReader reader = new PdfReader((string)fileName); if (File.Exists(fileName)) < PdfReader pdfReader = new PdfReader(fileName); for (int page = 1; page pdfReader.Close(); > > catch (Exception ex) < MessageBox.Show(ex.Message); >richTextBox1.Text = text.ToString(); > private void Save_TextFile_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) < SaveFileDialog sfd = new SaveFileDialog(); DialogResult messageResult = MessageBox.Show("Save this file into Text?", "Text File", MessageBoxButtons.OKCancel); if (messageResult == DialogResult.Cancel) < >else < sfd.Title = "Save As Textfile"; sfd.InitialDirectory = @"C:\"; sfd.Filter = "TextDocuments|*.txt"; if (sfd.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK) < if (richTextBox1.Text != "") < richTextBox1.SaveFile(sfd.FileName, RichTextBoxStreamType.PlainText); richTextBox1.Text = ""; MessageBox.Show("Text Saved Succesfully", "Text File"); >else < MessageBox.Show("Please Upload Your Pdf", "Text File", MessageBoxButtons.OKCancel, MessageBoxIcon.Asterisk); >> > > 

I think here not too much difficult thing that need to be described. - Well, out of the box your code does not even compile for the simple reason that you did not mention the dependencies. Neither the question nor your answer mentions iTextSharp. Anyone not recognizing the classes in question will be instantly lost. Furthermore you have unnecessary code elements, if the OP wants to create a command line application, GUI element event listeners are inappropriate. As a good example look at @Bobrovsky's answer, he both mentioned the library dependency and presented only pivotal code.

• c#
• pdf
• text-files