pdftotext(1)

NAME

       pdftotext  -  Portable Document Format (PDF) to text converter (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 configuration file com-
       mands.  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 physical 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: textEncoding]

       -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.   Providing  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 system-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 1996-2005  Glyph
       & Cog, LLC.

SEE ALSO

       xpdf(1),   pdftops(1),  pdfinfo(1),  pdffonts(1),  pdftoppm(1),  pdfim-
       ages(1), xpdfrc(5)
       http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/

                                17 August 2005                    pdftotext(1)