extract_text works for some PDF files, but not the others #437

babak-khamsehi · 2018-06-22T15:14:53Z

I am using Python 3.6.1 on Windows 8.1 and I want to extract certain texts from a group of PDF files. To do so, I am using this code and it works fine returning the PDF as a continuous text as string variable:

import PyPDF2
# creating a pdf file object
pdfFileObj = open('C:/Google Drive/Ward 29/data/ndvi.pdf', 'rb')
# creating a pdf reader object
pdfReader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdfFileObj, strict=False)
# getting the number of pages in pdf file
number_of_pages =pdfReader.getNumPages()
# creating a page object
pageObj = pdfReader.getPage(0)
page_content = pageObj.extractText()
print(page_content)
# closing the pdf file object

However, print(page_content) does return null if I use another PDF file, “55 HARRISON GARDEN.pdf” which I actually need to extract some information from:

### This code works for the ndvi file, but returns empty string for the 
harrison gdn file! I need to figure out why
import PyPDF2
# creating a pdf file object
pdfFileObj = open('C:/Google Drive/Ward 29/data/55 HARRISON GARDEN.pdf', 
'rb')
# creating a pdf reader object
pdfReader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdfFileObj, strict=False)
# getting the number of pages in pdf file
number_of_pages =pdfReader.getNumPages()
# creating a page object
pageObj = pdfReader.getPage(0)
page_content = pageObj.extractText()
print(page_content)
# closing the pdf file object
pdfFileObj.close()

Can anyone help me figure how I can fix it to read that pdf, “55 Harrison Garden.pdf” as well?

Here are the files I mentioned: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wzrPsPoeqZolsd7u0NS-I44sliFhxIpu?usp=sharing

Yiidiir · 2018-06-26T23:10:03Z

I had the same issue, i fixed it using another python library called slate
Fortunately, i found a fork that works in Python 3.6.5

import slate3k as slate

with open(file.pdf,'rb') as f:
    extracted_text = slate.PDF(f)
print(extracted_text)

hafizurcse · 2020-04-11T02:18:43Z

What I did is:

pip install slate3k

and then do same as suggested by @Yiirdiir

import slate3k as slate

with open('my-pdf-file-name.pdf', 'rb') as f:
    extracted_text = slate.PDF(f)
print(extracted_text)

shivstha · 2020-05-16T08:09:29Z

to extract all pages from pdf

import PyPDF2
pdfFileObj = open('your_pdf_name.pdf', 'rb')
pdfReader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdfFileObj)
pdf = ''
for i in range(0, pdfReader.numPages):
    pageObj = pdfReader.getPage(i)
    page = pageObj.extractText()
    pdf = page + ' '
print(pdf)

Akansha-SH · 2020-05-29T17:53:42Z

how to get all the pages from pdf ?

shivstha · 2020-05-30T04:27:06Z

how to get all the pages from pdf ?

#437 (comment)

kadnan · 2020-07-12T12:40:17Z

pip install slate3k

I ran the sample code and it returned:

WARNING:pdfminer.layout:Too many boxes (245) to group, skipping.
WARNING:pdfminer.layout:Too many boxes (204) to group, skipping.

ukumar009 · 2020-11-22T21:01:41Z

I had the same issue, i fixed it using another python library called slate
Fortunately, i found a fork that works in Python 3.6.5
import slate3k as slate

with open(file.pdf,'rb') as f:
    extracted_text = slate.PDF(f)
print(extracted_text)

Thank you @hafizurcse your solution worked well compared to pdf2reader extracting all data. thank you for sharing the solution.

SohamDasBiswas · 2020-11-28T13:29:11Z

@UdayKumar-Ch, @Yiidiir, @hafizurcse

Sir, Does slate3k can count the number of pages on a pdf?

rashmiinamdar · 2020-12-15T11:57:36Z

I tried with slate3k, but returned output as - ['\x0c']
Someone please help me

Manjeete · 2021-02-01T11:03:12Z

I tried with slate3k, but returned output as - ['\x0c']
Someone please help me

same here

Ndofi · 2021-03-15T21:55:41Z

How to extract multiple pdf files data in the same time?

madhavmansuriya40 · 2021-06-23T05:45:44Z

I tried with slate3k, but returned output as - ['\x0c']
Someone please help me

@rashmiinamdar @Manjeete
image embedded PDF can be the reason for this output
please try with the original pdf (generated from the machine)

sample.pdf

pgm-master · 2021-11-16T14:47:25Z

But is it possible to extract specific text from the pdf?

MartinThoma · 2022-04-06T20:59:05Z

Is this related to #168? Maybe even the same?

MartinThoma · 2022-06-06T13:17:08Z

I don't know how to reproduce this issue. I guess #924 has fixed it.

I'll release PyPDF2==2.1.0 today. Please ping me if you have this issue again/still.

The highlight of the 2.1.0 release is the most massive improvement to the text extraction capabilities of PyPDF2 since 2016 🥳🎊 A very big thank you goes to [pubpub-zz](https://github.com/pubpub-zz) who took a lot of time and knowledge about the PDF format to finally get those improvements into PyPDF2. Thank you 🤗💚 In case the new function causes any issues, you can use `_extract_text_old` for the old functionality. Please also open a bug ticket in that case. There were several people who have attempted to bring similar improvements to PyPDF2. All of those were valuable. The main reason why they didn't get merged is the big amount of open PRs / issues. pubpub-zz was the most comprehensive PR which also incorporated the latest changes of PyPDF2 2.0.0. Thank you to [VictorCarlquist](https://github.com/VictorCarlquist) for #858 and [asabramo](https://github.com/asabramo) for #464 🤗 New Features (ENH): - Massive text extraction improvement (#924). Closed many open issues: - Exceptions / missing spaces in extract_text() method (#17) 🕺 - Whitespace issues in extract_text() (#42) 💃 - pypdf2 reads the hifenated words in a new line (#246) - PyPDF2 failing to read unicode character (#37) - Unable to read bullets (#230) - ExtractText yields nothing for apparently good PDF (#168) 🎉 - Encoding issue in extract_text() (#235) - extractText() doesn't work on Chinese PDF (#252) - encoding error (#260) - Trouble with apostophes in names in text "O'Doul" (#384) - extract_text works for some PDF files, but not the others (#437) - Euro sign not being recognized by extractText (#443) - Failed extracting text from French texts (#524) - extract_text doesn't extract ligatures correctly (#598) - reading spanish text - mark convert issue (#635) - Read PDF changed from text to random symbols (#654) - .extractText() reads / as 1. (#789) - Update glyphlist (#947) - inspired by #464 - Allow adding PageRange objects (#948) Bug Fixes (BUG): - Delete .python-version file (#944) - Compare StreamObject.decoded_self with None (#931) Robustness (ROB): - Fix some conversion errors on non conform PDF (#932) Documentation (DOC): - Elaborate on PDF text extraction difficulties (#939) - Add logo (#942) - rotate vs Transformation().rotate (#937) - Example how to use PyPDF2 with AWS S3 (#938) - How to deprecate (#930) - Fix typos on robustness page (#935) - Remove scripts (pdfcat) from docs (#934) Developer Experience (DEV): - Ignore .python-version file - Mark deprecated code with no-cover (#943) - Automatically create Github releases from tags (#870) Testing (TST): - Text extraction for non-latin alphabets (#954) - Ignore PdfReadWarning in benchmark (#949) - writer.remove_text (#946) - Add test for Tree and _security (#945) Code Style (STY): - black, isort, Flake8, splitting buildCharMap (#950) Full Changelog: 2.0.0...2.1.0

ajinkyaG28 · 2022-07-07T16:06:18Z

@MartinThoma I am still facing that issue(cant extract from some pdfs) with PyPDF==2.4.2.

MartinThoma · 2022-07-07T19:22:03Z

Can you share such a PDF?

ajinkyaG28 · 2022-07-07T20:23:41Z

@MartinThoma Cant share work related pdf, but found this example of scanned pdf online: http://solutions.weblite.ca/pdfocrx/scansmpl.pdf
Cant extract from this pdf as well. Does PyPDF work with scanned pdfs?

MartinThoma · 2022-07-07T21:57:33Z

No. PyPDF2 does not do ocr. This is not a bug, but simply out of scope.

MartinThoma · 2022-07-07T21:58:13Z

But it might be worth documenting as I realize that the difference is not clear 🤔

MartinThoma added the is-bug From a users perspective, this is a bug - a violation of the expected behavior with a compliant PDF label Apr 8, 2022

py-pdf deleted a comment from Yiidiir Apr 16, 2022

MartinThoma added the workflow-text-extraction From a users perspective, text extraction is the affected feature/workflow label Apr 16, 2022

MartinThoma closed this as completed Jun 6, 2022

MartinThoma changed the title ~~PYPDF2 can extract text from some PDF files, but not the others…~~ extract_text works for some PDF files, but not the others Jun 6, 2022

MartinThoma added the needs-pdf The issue needs a PDF file to show the problem label Jul 7, 2022

MartinThoma mentioned this issue Jul 7, 2022

DOC: text extraction and OCR #1073

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extract_text works for some PDF files, but not the others #437

extract_text works for some PDF files, but not the others #437

babak-khamsehi commented Jun 22, 2018 •

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Yiidiir commented Jun 26, 2018 •

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hafizurcse commented Apr 11, 2020 •

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shivstha commented May 16, 2020 •

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Akansha-SH commented May 29, 2020

shivstha commented May 30, 2020

kadnan commented Jul 12, 2020

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rashmiinamdar commented Dec 15, 2020

Manjeete commented Feb 1, 2021

Ndofi commented Mar 15, 2021

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pgm-master commented Nov 16, 2021

MartinThoma commented Apr 6, 2022

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MartinThoma commented Jul 7, 2022

extract_text works for some PDF files, but not the others #437

extract_text works for some PDF files, but not the others #437

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babak-khamsehi commented Jun 22, 2018 • edited by MartinThoma Loading

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shivstha commented May 16, 2020 • edited by MartinThoma Loading

to extract all pages from pdf

Akansha-SH commented May 29, 2020

shivstha commented May 30, 2020

kadnan commented Jul 12, 2020

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