pdftotext(1)                                                                                                        pdftotext(1)



NAME
       pdftotext - Portable Document Format (PDF) to text converter (version 3.00)

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 con-
       verts file.pdf to file.txt.  If text-file is '-', the text is sent to stdout.

OPTIONS
       -f number
              Specifies the first page to convert.

       -l number
              Specifies the last page to convert.

       -r number
              Specifies the resolution, in DPI.  The default is 72 DPI.

       -x number
              Specifies the x-coordinate of the crop area top left corner

       -y number
              Specifies the y-coordinate of the crop area top left corner

       -W number
              Specifies the width of crop area in pixels (default is 0)

       -H number
              Specifies the height of crop area in pixels (default is 0)

       -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. This defaults to "UTF-8".

       -listenc
              Lits the available encodings

       -eol unix | dos | mac
              Sets the end-of-line convention to use for text output.

       -nopgbrk
              Don't insert page breaks (form feed characters) between pages.

       -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.

       -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 1996-2004 Glyph & Cog, LLC.

SEE ALSO
       pdftops(1), pdfinfo(1), pdffonts(1), pdftoppm(1), pdfimages(1),



                                                         22 January 2004                                            pdftotext(1)