pdftotext(1)

1pdftotext(1)                General Commands Manual               pdftotext(1)
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NAME

6       pdftotext  -  Portable Document Format (PDF) to text converter (version
7       3.00)
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SYNOPSIS

10       pdftotext [options] [PDF-file [text-file]]
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DESCRIPTION

13       Pdftotext converts Portable Document Format (PDF) files to plain text.
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15       Pdftotext reads the PDF file, PDF-file, and writes a text  file,  text-
16       file.   If  text-file  is not specified, pdftotext converts file.pdf to
17       file.txt.  If text-file is ´-', the text is sent to stdout.
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OPTIONS

20       -f number
21              Specifies the first page to convert.
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23       -l number
24              Specifies the last page to convert.
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26       -r number
27              Specifies the resolution, in DPI.  The default is 72 DPI.
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29       -x number
30              Specifies the x-coordinate of the crop area top left corner
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32       -y number
33              Specifies the y-coordinate of the crop area top left corner
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35       -W number
36              Specifies the width of crop area in pixels (default is 0)
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38       -H number
39              Specifies the height of crop area in pixels (default is 0)
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41       -layout
42              Maintain (as best as possible) the original physical  layout  of
43              the  text.   The  default is to ´undo' physical layout (columns,
44              hyphenation, etc.) and output the text in reading order.
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46       -raw   Keep the text in content stream order.  This  is  a  hack  which
47              often  "undoes"  column  formatting, etc.  Use of raw mode is no
48              longer recommended.
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50       -htmlmeta
51              Generate a simple HTML file,  including  the  meta  information.
52              This  simply wraps the text in <pre> and </pre> and prepends the
53              meta headers.
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55       -enc encoding-name
56              Sets the encoding to use  for  text  output.  This  defaults  to
57              "UTF-8".
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59       -listenc
60              Lits the available encodings
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62       -eol unix | dos | mac
63              Sets the end-of-line convention to use for text output.
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65       -nopgbrk
66              Don't insert page breaks (form feed characters) between pages.
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68       -opw password
69              Specify  the  owner  password  for the PDF file.  Providing this
70              will bypass all security restrictions.
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72       -upw password
73              Specify the user password for the PDF file.
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75       -q     Don't print any messages or errors.
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77       -v     Print copyright and version information.
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79       -h     Print usage information.  (-help and --help are equivalent.)
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BUGS

82       Some PDF files contain fonts whose encodings have been  mangled  beyond
83       recognition.  There is no way (short of OCR) to extract text from these
84       files.
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EXIT CODES

87       The Xpdf tools use the following exit codes:
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89       0      No error.
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91       1      Error opening a PDF file.
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93       2      Error opening an output file.
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95       3      Error related to PDF permissions.
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97       99     Other error.
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AUTHOR

100       The pdftotext software and documentation are copyright 1996-2004  Glyph
101       & Cog, LLC.
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