PdfPig 0.1.0-beta001

This project allows users to read and extract text and other content from PDF files. In addition the library can be used to create simple PDF documents containing text and geometrical shapes.

Migrating to 0.1.x from 0.0.x? Use this guide: migration to 0.1.x.

Get Started

The simplest usage at this stage is to open a document, reading the words from every page:

using (PdfDocument document = PdfDocument.Open(@"C:\Documents\document.pdf"))
{
    foreach (Page page in document.GetPages())
    {
        string pageText = page.Text;

        foreach (Word word in page.GetWords())
        {
            Console.WriteLine(word.Text);
        }
    }
}

To create documents use the class PdfDocumentBuilder. The Standard 14 fonts provide a quick way to get started:

PdfDocumentBuilder builder = new PdfDocumentBuilder();

PdfPageBuilder page = builder.AddPage(PageSize.A4);

// Fonts must be registered with the document builder prior to use to prevent duplication.
PdfDocumentBuilder.AddedFont font = builder.AddStandard14Font(Standard14Font.Helvetica);

page.AddText("Hello World!", 12, new PdfPoint(25, 520), font);

byte[] documentBytes = builder.Build();

File.WriteAllBytes(@"C:\git\newPdf.pdf", documentBytes);

Each font must be registered with the PdfDocumentBuilder prior to use enable pages to share the font resources. Only Standard 14 fonts and TrueType fonts (.ttf) are supported.

Usage

The PdfDocument class provides access to the contents of a document loaded either from file or passed in as bytes. To open from a file use the PdfDocument.Open static method:

using UglyToad.PdfPig;
using UglyToad.PdfPig.Content;

using (PdfDocument document = PdfDocument.Open(@"C:\my-file.pdf"))
{
    int pageCount = document.NumberOfPages;

    // Page number starts from 1, not 0.
    Page page = document.GetPage(1);

    decimal widthInPoints = page.Width;
    decimal heightInPoints = page.Height;

    string text = page.Text;
}

PdfDocument should only be used in a using statement since it implements IDisposable (unless the consumer disposes of it elsewhere).

Encrypted documents can be opened by PdfPig. To provide an owner or user password provide the optional ParsingOptions when calling Open with the Password property defined. For example:

using (PdfDocument document = PdfDocument.Open(@"C:\my-file.pdf",  new ParsingOptions { Password = "password here" }))

You can also provide a list of passwords to try:

using (PdfDocument document = PdfDocument.Open(@"C:\file.pdf", new ParsingOptions 
{ 
    Passwords = new List<string> { "One", "Two" } 
}))

The document contains the version of the PDF specification it complies with, accessed by document.Version:

decimal version = document.Version;

Document Information

The PdfDocument provides access to the document metadata as DocumentInformation defined in the PDF file. These tend not to be provided therefore most of these entries will be null:

PdfDocument document = PdfDocument.Open(fileName);

// The name of the program used to convert this document to PDF.
string producer = document.Information.Producer;
// etc...

Document Structure (0.0.3)

The document now has a Structure member:

UglyToad.PdfPig.Structure structure = document.Structure;

This provides access to tokenized PDF document content:

Catalog catalog = structure.Catalog;
DictionaryToken pagesDictionary = catalog.PagesDictionary;

The pages dictionary is the root of the pages tree within a PDF document. The structure also exposes a GetObject(IndirectReference reference) method which allows random access to any object in the PDF as long as its identifier number is known. This is an identifier of the form 69 0 R where 69 is the object number and 0 is the generation.

Page

The Page contains the page width and height in points as well as mapping to the PageSize enum:

PageSize size = Page.Size;

bool isA4 = size == PageSize.A4;

Page provides access to the text of the page:

string text = page.Text;

There is a new (0.0.3) method which provides access to the words. This uses basic heuristics:

IEnumerable<Word> words = page.GetWords();

Letter

Due to the way a PDF is structured internally the page text may not be a readable representation of the text as it appears in the document. Since PDF is a presentation format, text can be drawn in any order, not necessarily reading order. This means spaces may be missing or words may be in unexpected positions in the text.

To help users resolve actual text order on the page, the Page file provides access to a list of the letters:

IReadOnlyList<Letter> letters = page.Letters;

Letter position is measured in PDF coordinates where the origin is the lower left corner of the page. Therefore a higher Y value means closer to the top of the page.

Annotations (0.0.5)

Early support for retrieving annotations on each page is provided using the method:

page.ExperimentalAccess.GetAnnotations()

This call is not cached and the document must not have been disposed prior to use. The annotations API may change in future.

Bookmarks (0.0.10)

The bookmarks (outlines) of a document may be retrieved at the document level:

bool hasBookmarks = document.TryGetBookmarks(out Bookmarks bookmarks);

This will return false if the document does not define any bookmarks.

Forms (0.0.10)

Form fields for interactive forms (AcroForms) can be retrieved using:

bool hasForm = document.TryGetForm(out AcroForm form);

This will return false if the document does not contain a form.

The fields can be accessed using the AcroForm's Fields property. Since the form is defined at the document level this will return fields from all pages in the document. Fields are of the types defined by the enum AcroFieldType, for example PushButton, Checkbox, Text, etc.

Hyperlinks (0.1.0)

A page has a method to extract hyperlinks (annotations of link type):

IReadOnlyList<UglyToad.PdfPig.Content.Hyperlink> hyperlinks = page.GetHyperlinks();

TrueType (0.1.0)

The classes used to work with TrueType fonts in the PDF file are now available for public consumption. Given an input file:

using UglyToad.PdfPig.Fonts.TrueType;
using UglyToad.PdfPig.Fonts.TrueType.Parser;

byte[] fontBytes = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(@"C:\font.ttf");
TrueTypeDataBytes input = new TrueTypeDataBytes(fontBytes);
TrueTypeFont font = TrueTypeFontParser.Parse(input);

The parsed font can then be inspected.

Credit

This project wouldn't be possible without the work done by the PDFBox team and the Apache Foundation. Any bugs in the code are entirely my fault.