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[PDF & Document Generation](/categories/documents) 4. / 5. dragomirt/pdf-to-text ActiveLibrary[PDF & Document Generation](/categories/documents) dragomirt/pdf-to-text ===================== Extract text from a pdf 1.5.3(4y ago)03.9k1MITPHPPHP ^7.3|^8.0 Since Dec 31Pushed 4y agoCompare [ Source](https://github.com/dragomirt/pdf-to-text)[ Packagist](https://packagist.org/packages/dragomirt/pdf-to-text)[ Docs](https://github.com/dragomirt/pdf-to-text)[ Fund](https://spatie.be/open-source/support-us)[ RSS](/packages/dragomirt-pdf-to-text/feed)WikiDiscussions master Synced 3w ago READMEChangelog (4)Dependencies (2)Versions (14)Used By (0) Extract text from a pdf ======================= [](#extract-text-from-a-pdf) Convert pdf to plain text, even on empty and encrypted files. This package is based on [spatie/pdf-to-text](https://github.com/spatie/pdf-to-text). Requirements ------------ [](#requirements) Behind the scenes this package leverages [pdftotext](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdftotext). You can verify if the binary installed on your system by issueing this command: ``` which pdftotext ``` If it is installed it will return the path to the binary. To install the binary you can use this command on Ubuntu or Debian: ``` apt-get install poppler-utils ``` On a mac you can install the binary using brew ``` brew install poppler ``` If you're on RedHat or CentOS use this: ``` yum install poppler-utils ``` To use the OCR functionality, install the following dependencies, in accordance to your package manager. The following example is based on Ubuntu. ``` apt-get install tesseract-ocr ocrmypdf ``` To use the decryption functionality, install the following dependencies, in accordance to your package manager. ``` #this is Debian based apt-get install qpdf ``` Installation ------------ [](#installation) You can install the package via composer: ``` composer require spatie/pdf-to-text ``` Usage ----- [](#usage) Extracting text from a pdf is easy. ``` $text = (new Pdf()) ->setPdf('book.pdf') ->text(); ``` Or easier: ``` 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 ``` $text = (new Pdf('/custom/path/to/pdftotext')) ->setPdf('book.pdf') ->text(); ``` or as the second parameter to the `getText` static method: ``` echo Pdf::getText('book.pdf', '/custom/path/to/pdftotext'); ``` Sometimes you may want to use [pdftotext options](https://linux.die.net/man/1/pdftotext). To do so you can set them up using the `setOptions` method. ``` $text = (new Pdf()) ->setPdf('table.pdf') ->setOptions(['layout', 'r 96']) ->text() ; ``` or as the third parameter to the `getText` static method: ``` 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. 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: ``` $text = (new Pdf()) ->setPdf('table.pdf') ->setOptions(['layout', 'r 96']) ->addOptions(['f 1']) ->text() ; ``` To extract data from empty files, use the `scan` method, with it's respective options setter. The method `decrypt` opens "encrypted" files with empty passwords. ``` $text = (new Pdf()) ->setPdf('table.pdf') ->setOptions(['layout', 'r 96']) ->addOptions(['f 1']) ->setScanOptions(['-l nld+eng', '--skip-text']) ->scan() ->decrypt() ->text() ; ``` Testing ------- [](#testing) ``` composer test ``` Credits ------- [](#credits) - [Freek Van der Herten](https://github.com/freekmurze) - [Dragomir Țurcanu](https://github.com/dragomirt) - [All Contributors](../../contributors) License ------- [](#license) The MIT License (MIT). Please see [License File](LICENSE.md) for more information. ### Health Score 35 — LowBetter than 77% of packages Maintenance20 Infrequent updates — may be unmaintained Popularity17 Limited adoption so far Community15 Small or concentrated contributor base Maturity75 Established project with proven stability Bus Factor1 Top contributor holds 57.6% of commits — single point of failure How is this calculated?**Maintenance (25%)** — Last commit recency, latest release date, and issue-to-star ratio. Uses a 2-year decay window. **Popularity (30%)** — Total and monthly downloads, GitHub stars, and forks. Logarithmic scaling prevents top-heavy scores. **Community (15%)** — Contributors, dependents, forks, watchers, and maintainers. Measures real ecosystem engagement. **Maturity (30%)** — Project age, version count, PHP version support, and release stability. ### Release Activity Cadence Every ~180 days Recently: every ~92 days Total 13 Last Release 1667d ago Major Versions 0.0.1 → 1.0.02015-12-31 PHP version history (3 changes)0.0.1PHP ^7.0 1.3.0PHP ^7.3 1.4.0PHP ^7.3|^8.0 ### Community Maintainers ![](https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/29e1f269bc8c004e4cc1b695d380bdf8b761b92a5ab347bb705fd2553987c97c?d=identicon)[dragomirt](/maintainers/dragomirt) --- Top Contributors [![freekmurze](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/483853?v=4)](https://github.com/freekmurze "freekmurze (53 commits)")[![nyamsprod](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/51073?v=4)](https://github.com/nyamsprod "nyamsprod (16 commits)")[![dragomirt](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/22262264?v=4)](https://github.com/dragomirt "dragomirt (10 commits)")[![sebastiandedeyne](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1561079?v=4)](https://github.com/sebastiandedeyne "sebastiandedeyne (4 commits)")[![AdrianMrn](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/12762044?v=4)](https://github.com/AdrianMrn "AdrianMrn (3 commits)")[![RayDabbah](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/25418202?v=4)](https://github.com/RayDabbah "RayDabbah (2 commits)")[![JayBizzle](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/340752?v=4)](https://github.com/JayBizzle "JayBizzle (1 commits)")[![peter279k](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/9021747?v=4)](https://github.com/peter279k "peter279k (1 commits)")[![carusogabriel](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/16328050?v=4)](https://github.com/carusogabriel "carusogabriel (1 commits)")[![srmklive](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/839335?v=4)](https://github.com/srmklive "srmklive (1 commits)") --- Tags spatiepdfOCRpdf-to-textdragomirt ### Code Quality TestsPHPUnit ### Embed Badge ![Health badge](/badges/dragomirt-pdf-to-text/health.svg) ``` [![Health](https://phpackages.com/badges/dragomirt-pdf-to-text/health.svg)](https://phpackages.com/packages/dragomirt-pdf-to-text) ``` ### Alternatives [spatie/browsershot Convert a webpage to an image or pdf using headless Chrome 5.2k35.1M142](/packages/spatie-browsershot)[knplabs/knp-snappy PHP library allowing thumbnail, snapshot or PDF generation from a url or a html page. Wrapper for wkhtmltopdf/wkhtmltoimage. 4.5k71.0M59](/packages/knplabs-knp-snappy)[spatie/pdf-to-text Extract text from a pdf 1.0k7.3M50](/packages/spatie-pdf-to-text)[spatie/pdf-to-image Convert a pdf to an image 1.4k16.1M91](/packages/spatie-pdf-to-image)[pontedilana/php-weasyprint PHP library allowing PDF generation from an url or a html page. Wrapper for Kozea/WeasyPrint. 781.2M14](/packages/pontedilana-php-weasyprint)[vaites/php-apache-tika Apache Tika bindings for PHP: extracts text from documents and images (with OCR), metadata and more... 1171.5M2](/packages/vaites-php-apache-tika) PHPackages © 2026 [Directory](/)[Categories](/categories)[Trending](/trending)[Changelog](/changelog)[Analyze](/analyze)