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       3.03)
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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       -fixed number
47              Assume fixed-pitch (or tabular) text, with the specified charac‐
48              ter width (in points).  This forces physical layout mode.
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50       -raw   Keep  the  text  in  content stream order.  This is a hack which
51              often "undoes" column formatting, etc.  Use of raw  mode  is  no
52              longer recommended.
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54       -nodiag
55              Discard  diagonal  text  (i.e., text that is not close to one of
56              the 0, 90, 180, or 270 degree axes). This is useful for skipping
57              watermarks drawn on body text.
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59       -htmlmeta
60              Generate  a  simple  HTML  file, including the meta information.
61              This simply wraps the text in <pre> and </pre> and prepends  the
62              meta headers.
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64       -bbox  Generate  an  XHTML file containing bounding box information for
65              each word in the file.
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67       -bbox-layout
68              Generate an XHTML file containing bounding box  information  for
69              each block, line, and word in the file.
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71       -enc encoding-name
72              Sets  the  encoding  to  use  for  text output. This defaults to
73              "UTF-8".
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75       -listenc
76              Lists the available encodings
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78       -eol unix | dos | mac
79              Sets the end-of-line convention to use for text output.
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81       -nopgbrk
82              Don't insert page breaks (form feed characters) between pages.
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84       -opw password
85              Specify the owner password for the  PDF  file.   Providing  this
86              will bypass all security restrictions.
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88       -upw password
89              Specify the user password for the PDF file.
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91       -q     Don't print any messages or errors.
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93       -v     Print copyright and version information.
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95       -h     Print usage information.  (-help and --help are equivalent.)
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BUGS

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

103       The Xpdf tools use the following exit codes:
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105       0      No error.
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107       1      Error opening a PDF file.
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109       2      Error opening an output file.
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111       3      Error related to PDF permissions.
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113       99     Other error.
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AUTHOR

116       The  pdftotext software and documentation are copyright 1996-2011 Glyph
117       & Cog, LLC.
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