pdftotext(1)                                         pdftotext(1)



NAME
       pdftotext  -  Portable  Document Format (PDF) to text con-
       verter (version 3.01)

SYNOPSIS
       pdftotext [options] [PDF-file [text-file]]

DESCRIPTION
       Pdftotext converts Portable Document Format (PDF) files to
       plain text.

       Pdftotext  reads the PDF file, PDF-file, and writes a text
       file, text-file.  If text-file is not specified, pdftotext
       converts  file.pdf  to file.txt.  If text-file is '-', the
       text is sent to stdout.

CONFIGURATION FILE
       Pdftotext reads a configuration file at startup.  It first
       tries  to  find the user's private config file, ~/.xpdfrc.
       If that doesn't exist, it looks for a  system-wide  config
       file,  typically  /usr/local/etc/xpdfrc (but this location
       can  be  changed  when  pdftotext  is  built).   See   the
       xpdfrc(5) man page for details.

OPTIONS
       Many  of  the following options can be set with configura-
       tion file commands.  These are listed in  square  brackets
       with  the  description  of  the corresponding command line
       option.

       -f number
              Specifies the first page to convert.

       -l number
              Specifies the last page to convert.

       -layout
              Maintain (as best as possible) the original  physi-
              cal  layout  of the text.  The default is to 'undo'
              physical layout (columns,  hyphenation,  etc.)  and
              output the text in reading order.

       -raw   Keep  the  text in content stream order.  This is a
              hack which often "undoes" column  formatting,  etc.
              Use of raw mode is no longer recommended.

       -htmlmeta
              Generate  a  simple  HTML  file, including the meta
              information.  This simply wraps the text  in  <pre>
              and </pre> and prepends the meta headers.

       -enc encoding-name
              Sets  the  encoding  to  use  for text output.  The
              encoding-name must be defined with  the  unicodeMap
              command  (see  xpdfrc(5)).   The  encoding  name is
              case-sensitive.  This defaults to  "Latin1"  (which
              is  a built-in encoding).  [config file: textEncod-
              ing]

       -eol unix | dos | mac
              Sets the end-of-line convention  to  use  for  text
              output.  [config file: textEOL]

       -nopgbrk
              Don't  insert  page  breaks  (form feed characters)
              between pages.  [config file: textPageBreaks]

       -opw password
              Specify the owner password for the PDF file.   Pro-
              viding  this will bypass all security restrictions.

       -upw password
              Specify the user password for the PDF file.

       -q     Don't print any messages or errors.  [config  file:
              errQuiet]

       -cfg config-file
              Read  config-file in place of ~/.xpdfrc or the sys-
              tem-wide config file.

       -v     Print copyright and version information.

       -h     Print usage information.   (-help  and  --help  are
              equivalent.)

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

EXIT CODES
       The Xpdf tools use the following exit codes:

       0      No error.

       1      Error opening a PDF file.

       2      Error opening an output file.

       3      Error related to PDF permissions.

       99     Other error.

AUTHOR
       The  pdftotext  software  and  documentation are copyright
       1996-2007 Glyph & Cog, LLC.

SEE ALSO
       xpdf(1), pdftops(1), pdfinfo(1), pdffonts(1), pdftoppm(1),
       pdfimages(1), xpdfrc(5)
       http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/



                          17 August 2005             pdftotext(1)
