How to extract text from a PDF file?

Question

Hello Suners,
i need to know how to extract text from a pdf file?
does anyone know what is the character encoding in pdf file, when i use an input stream to read the file it gives encrypted characters not the original text in the file.
is there any procedures i should do while reading a pdf file,
File f=new File("D:/File.pdf");
               FileReader fr=new FileReader(f);
               BufferedReader br=new BufferedReader(fr);
               String s=br.readLine();any help will be deeply appreciated.

Answer 1

jverd wrote:
First, you set i once, and then loop without ever changing it. So your loop body will execute either 0 times or infinitely many times, writing the same byte every time. Actually, maybe it'll execute once and then throw an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException. That's basic java looping, and you're going to need a firm grip on that before you try to do anything as advanced as PDF reading. the case.oops you are absolutely right that was a silly mistake to forget that,
Second, what do the docs for getPageContent say? Do they say that it simply gives you the text on the page as if the thing were a simple text doc? I'd be surprised if that's the case.getPageContent return array of bytes so the question will be:
how to get text from this array? i was thinking of :
    private void jButton1_actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        PdfReader read;
        StringBuffer buff=new StringBuffer();
        try {
            read = new PdfReader("d:/getjobid2727.pdf");
            read.getMetaData();
            byte[] data=read.getPageContent(1);
            int i=0;
            while(i>-1){ 
                buff.append(data);
i++;
String str=buff.toString();
FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("D:/test.txt");
Writer out = new OutputStreamWriter(fos, "UTF8");
out.write(str);
out.close();
read.close();
} catch (Exception f) {
f.printStackTrace();
"D:/test.txt"  hasn't been created!! when i ran the program,
is my steps right?