pdf-processing

# PDF Processing ## Quick start Use pdfplumber to extract text from PDFs: ```python import pdfplumber with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf: text = pdf.pages[0].extract_text() print(text) ``` ## Extracting tables Extract tables from PDFs with automatic detection: ```python import pdfplumber with pdfplumber.open("report.pdf") as pdf: page = pdf.pages[0] tables = page.extract_tables() for table in tables: for row in table: print(row) ``` ## Extracting all pages Process multi-page documents efficiently: ```python import pdfplumber with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf: full_text = "" for page in pdf.pages: full_text += page.extract_text() + "\n\n" print(full_text) ``` ## Form filling For PDF form filling, see [FORMS.md](FORMS.md) for the complete guide including field analysis and validation. ## Merging PDFs Combine multiple PDF files: ```python from pypdf import PdfMerger merger = PdfMerger() for pdf in ["file1.pdf", "file2.pdf", "file3.pdf"]: merger.append(pdf) merger.write("merged.pdf") merger.close() ``` ## Splitting PDFs Extract specific pages or ranges: ```python from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter reader = PdfReader("input.pdf") writer = PdfWriter() # Extract pages 2-5 for page_num in range(1, 5): writer.add_page(reader.pages[page_num]) with open("output.pdf", "wb") as output: writer.write(output) ``` ## Available packages - **pdfplumber** - Text and table extraction (recommended) - **pypdf** - PDF manipulation, merging, splitting - **pdf2image** - Convert PDFs to images (requires poppler) - **pytesseract** - OCR for scanned PDFs (requires tesseract) ## Common patterns **Extract and save text:** ```python import pdfplumber with pdfplumber.open("input.pdf") as pdf: text = "\n\n".join(page.extract_text() for page in pdf.pages) with open("output.txt", "w") as f: f.write(text) ``` **Extract tables to CSV:** ```python import pdfplumber import csv with pdfplumber.open("tables.pdf") as pdf: tables = pdf.pages[0].extract_tables() with open("output.csv", "w", newline="") as f: writer = csv.writer(f) for table in tables: writer.writerows(table) ``` ## Error handling Handle common PDF issues: ```python import pdfplumber try: with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf: if len(pdf.pages) == 0: print("PDF has no pages") else: text = pdf.pages[0].extract_text() if text is None or text.strip() == "": print("Page contains no extractable text (might be scanned)") else: print(text) except Exception as e: print(f"Error processing PDF: {e}") ``` ## Performance tips - Process pages in batches for large PDFs - Use multiprocessing for multiple files - Extract only needed pages rather than entire document - Close PDF objects after use