Can we extract text from PDF using Python?

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Introduction:

Extracting text from PDF files is a common task in data processing and analysis. Python provides powerful libraries and tools to make this process efficient and straightforward. In this blog, we'll explore how to extract text from PDF documents using Python, focusing on three popular libraries: pdf2imag, pytesseract, and PIL.

Text extraction from PDFs can pose several challenges due to the diversity of PDF files and the various ways text can be represented within them. Here are some potential challenges:

Text Encoding Issues

  1. PDFs may use different text encodings, and the extracted text may contain characters that are not encoded in a standard way. This can lead to encoding errors or garbled text during extraction.
Non-Standard Font Embedding:
  1. PDFs can embed fonts in a non-standard way or use custom fonts that are not recognized by text extraction tools. This can result in the misinterpretation or loss of formatting during extraction.

  3. Scanned Documents (OCR):
  5. PDFs generated from scanned documents may not have selectable text at all. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) may be required to convert image-based text into machine-readable text, adding an extra layer of complexity.

  7. We can make this possible by converting a PDF file to a set of images and then using OCR to recognize text from each image, combining the results into a single output text file.

  9. Here is the high-level workflow to accomplish text extraction from PDF

  • Import required libraries: PIL (Pillow) for image processing, pytesseract for OCR, sys for system-related functions, pdf2image for converting PDF pages to images, and os for interacting with the operating system.




Here is the code snippet you can reference to create your own version of the text extractor:





There are numerous other libraries and different ways to perform text extraction from PDF, you need to try different alternatives and carefully choose the one that fits your purpose.

With enthusiasm🎉

Abhijit

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