Python - Process PDF

Python can read PDF files and print out the content after extracting the text from it. For that we have to first install the required module which is PyPDF2. Below is the command to install the module. You should have pip already installed in your python environment.

pip install pypdf2

On successful installation of this module we can read PDF files using the methods available in the module.

import PyPDF2

pdfName = 'path\Tutorialspoint.pdf'
read_pdf = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdfName)
page = read_pdf.getPage(0)
page_content = page.extractText()
print page_content

When we run the above program, we get the following output −

Tutorials Point originated from the idea that there exists a class of readers who respond better 
to online content and prefer to learn new skills at their own pace from the comforts of their 
drawing rooms.
 
The journey commenced with a single tutorial on HTML in 2006 and elated by the response 
it generated, we worked our way to adding fresh tutorials to our repository which now 
proudly flaunts a wealth of tutorials and allied articles on topics ranging from programming
languages to web designing to academics and much more.

Reading Multiple Pages

To read a pdf with multiple pages and print each of the page with a page number we use the a loop with getPageNumber() function. In the below example we the PDF file which has two pages. The contents are printed under two separate page headings.

import PyPDF2

pdfName = 'Path\Tutorialspoint2.pdf'
read_pdf = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdfName)

for i in xrange(read_pdf.getNumPages()):
    page = read_pdf.getPage(i)
    print 'Page No - ' + str(1+read_pdf.getPageNumber(page))
    page_content = page.extractText()
    print page_content

When we run the above program, we get the following output −

Page No - 1
Tutorials Point originated from the idea that there exists a class of readers who respond better to 
online content and prefer to learn new skills at their own pace from the comforts of their drawing 
rooms. 


Page No - 2
 
The journey commenced with a single tutorial on HTML in 2006 and elated by the response it 
generated, we worked our way to adding fresh tutorials to our repository which now proudly flaunts 
a wealth of tutorials and allied articles on topics ranging from p
rogramming languages to web 
designing to academics and much more.
 

Frequently Asked Questions