pdftotext

pdftotext is a command line tool used to extract plain text from PDF files. It is part of the poppler-utils package, which is available on most Linux distributions.

This tool converts the content of a PDF file into a simple text format, making it easier to search, analyze, or use in other applications.

pdftotext preserves the layout and structure of the original document. It can extract text from scanned PDFs as well, provided that they contain OCR (Optical Character Recognition) data.

Users can specify the page or range of pages they want to extract, allowing for flexibility in extracting only certain sections of a PDF.

pdftotext supports various output formats, including plain text, HTML, and XML. This flexibility allows users to process the extracted text effectively according to their requirements.

It also supports merging multiple PDF files into a single text file, simplifying the extraction process for a large number of PDFs.

pdftotext is a versatile tool that can handle complex PDF documents with graphics, tables, and other elements, extracting the textual content while maintaining a visually representative structure.

This command line tool can be integrated into scripts or used directly from the terminal, making it suitable for both batch processing and interactive use.

pdftotext is known for its speed and accuracy, ensuring efficient extraction even for large or complex PDF files.

Overall, pdftotext is a powerful command line tool for extracting text from PDF files, offering flexibility, performance, and ease of use.