|`--format [format]`| `csv` or `json`. The `json` format returns more information; it includes PDF-level and page-level metadata, plus dictionary-nested attributes.|
|`--pages [list of pages]`| A space-delimited, `1`-indexed list of pages or hyphenated page ranges. E.g., `1, 11-15`, which would return data for pages 1, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.|
Invalid metadata values are treated as a warning by default. If that is not intended, pass `strict_metadata=True` to the `open` method and `pdfplumber.open` will raise an exception if it is unable to parse the metadata.
|`.metadata`| A dictionary of metadata key/value pairs, drawn from the PDF's `Info` trailers. Typically includes "CreationDate," "ModDate," "Producer," et cetera.|
|`.pages`| A list containing one `pdfplumber.Page` instance per page loaded.|
The `pdfplumber.Page` class is at the core of `pdfplumber`. Most things you'll do with `pdfplumber` will revolve around this class. It has these main properties:
|`.objects` / `.chars` / `.lines` / `.rects` / `.curves` / `.images`| Each of these properties is a list, and each list contains one dictionary for each such object embedded on the page. For more detail, see "[Objects](#objects)" below.|
|`.crop(bounding_box, relative=False)`| Returns a version of the page cropped to the bounding box, which should be expressed as 4-tuple with the values `(x0, top, x1, bottom)`. Cropped pages retain objects that fall at least partly within the bounding box. If an object falls only partly within the box, its dimensions are sliced to fit the bounding box. If `relative=True`, the bounding box is calculated as an offset from the top-left of the page's bounding box, rather than an absolute positioning. (See [Issue #245](https://github.com/jsvine/pdfplumber/issues/245) for a visual example and explanation.)|
|`.dedupe_chars(tolerance=1)`| Returns a version of the page with duplicate chars — those sharing the same text, fontname, size, and positioning (within `tolerance` x/y) as other characters — removed. (See [Issue #71](https://github.com/jsvine/pdfplumber/issues/71) to understand the motivation.)|
|`.extract_text(x_tolerance=3, y_tolerance=3)`| Collates all of the page's character objects into a single string. Adds spaces where the difference between the `x1` of one character and the `x0` of the next is greater than `x_tolerance`. Adds newline characters where the difference between the `doctop` of one character and the `doctop` of the next is greater than `y_tolerance`.|
|`.extract_words(x_tolerance=3, y_tolerance=3, keep_blank_chars=False, use_text_flow=False, horizontal_ltr=True, vertical_ttb=True, extra_attrs=[])`| Returns a list of all word-looking things and their bounding boxes. Words are considered to be sequences of characters where (for "upright" characters) the difference between the `x1` of one character and the `x0` of the next is less than or equal to `x_tolerance`*and* where the `doctop` of one character and the `doctop` of the next is less than or equal to `y_tolerance`. A similar approach is taken for non-upright characters, but instead measuring the vertical, rather than horizontal, distances between them. The parameters `horizontal_ltr` and `vertical_ttb` indicate whether the words should be read from left-to-right (for horizontal words) / top-to-bottom (for vertical words). Changing `keep_blank_chars` to `True` will mean that blank characters are treated as part of a word, not as a space between words. Changing `use_text_flow` to `True` will use the PDF's underlying flow of characters as a guide for ordering and segmenting the words, rather than presorting the characters by x/y position. (This mimics how dragging a cursor highlights text in a PDF; as with that, the order does not always appear to be logical.) Passing a list of `extra_attrs` (e.g., `["fontname", "size"]` will restrict each words to characters that share exactly the same value for each of those [attributes](https://github.com/jsvine/pdfplumber/blob/develop/README.md#char-properties), and the resulting word dicts will indicate those attributes.|
|`.extract_tables(table_settings)`| Extracts tabular data from the page. For more details see "[Extracting tables](#extracting-tables)" below.|
|`.to_image(**conversion_kwargs)`| Returns an instance of the `PageImage` class. For more details, see "[Visual debugging](#visual-debugging)" below. For conversion_kwargs, see [here](http://docs.wand-py.org/en/latest/wand/image.html#wand.image.Image).|
Each instance of `pdfplumber.PDF` and `pdfplumber.Page` provides access to four types of PDF objects. The following properties each return a Python list of the matching objects:
-`.annots`, each representing a single PDF annotation (cf. Section 8.4 of the [official PDF specification](https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_reference_1-7.pdf) for details)
-`.hyperlinks`, each representing a single PDF annotation of the subtype `Link` and having an `URI` action attribute
Additionally, both `pdfplumber.PDF` and `pdfplumber.Page` provide access to two derived lists of objects: `.rect_edges` (which decomposes each rectangle into its four lines) and `.edges` (which combines `.rect_edges` with `.lines`).
To turn any page (including cropped pages) into an `PageImage` object, call `my_page.to_image()`. You can optionally pass a `resolution={integer}` keyword argument, which defaults to 72. E.g.:
|`im.draw_line(line, stroke={color}, stroke_width=1)`| `im.draw_lines(list_of_lines, **kwargs)`| Draws a line from a `line`, `curve`, or a 2-tuple of 2-tuples (e.g., `((x, y), (x, y))`).|
|`im.draw_vline(location, stroke={color}, stroke_width=1)`| `im.draw_vlines(list_of_locations, **kwargs)`| Draws a vertical line at the x-coordinate indicated by `location`.|
|`im.draw_hline(location, stroke={color}, stroke_width=1)`| `im.draw_hlines(list_of_locations, **kwargs)`| Draws a horizontal line at the y-coordinate indicated by `location`.|
|`im.draw_rect(bbox_or_obj, fill={color}, stroke={color}, stroke_width=1)`| `im.draw_rects(list_of_rects, **kwargs)`| Draws a rectangle from a `rect`, `char`, etc., or 4-tuple bounding box.|
|`im.draw_circle(center_or_obj, radius=5, fill={color}, stroke={color})`| `im.draw_circles(list_of_circles, **kwargs)`| Draws a circle at `(x, y)` coordinate or at the center of a `char`, `rect`, etc.|
Note: The methods above are built on Pillow's [`ImageDraw` methods](http://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/ImageDraw.html), but the parameters have been tweaked for consistency with SVG's `fill`/`stroke`/`stroke_width` nomenclature.
### Troubleshooting ImageMagick on Debian-based systems
If you're using `pdfplumber` on a Debian-based system and encounter a `PolicyError`, you may be able to fix it by changing the following line in `/etc/ImageMagick-6/policy.xml` from this:
`pdfplumber`'s approach to table detection borrows heavily from [Anssi Nurminen's master's thesis](http://dspace.cc.tut.fi/dpub/bitstream/handle/123456789/21520/Nurminen.pdf?sequence=3), and is inspired by [Tabula](https://github.com/tabulapdf/tabula-extractor/issues/16). It works like this:
1. For any given PDF page, find the lines that are (a) explicitly defined and/or (b) implied by the alignment of words on the page.
2. Merge overlapping, or nearly-overlapping, lines.
3. Find the intersections of all those lines.
4. Find the most granular set of rectangles (i.e., cells) that use these intersections as their vertices.
5. Group contiguous cells into tables.
### Table-extraction methods
`pdfplumber.Page` objects can call the following table methods:
| Method | Description |
|--------|-------------|
|`.find_tables(table_settings={})`|Returns a list of `Table` objects. The `Table` object provides access to the `.cells`, `.rows`, and `.bbox` properties, as well as the `.extract(x_tolerance=3, y_tolerance=3)` method.|
|`.extract_tables(table_settings={})`|Returns the text extracted from *all* tables found on the page, represented as a list of lists of lists, with the structure `table -> row -> cell`.|
|`.extract_table(table_settings={})`|Returns the text extracted from the *largest* table on the page, represented as a list of lists, with the structure `row -> cell`. (If multiple tables have the same size — as measured by the number of cells — this method returns the table closest to the top of the page.)|
|`.debug_tablefinder(table_settings={})`|Returns an instance of the `TableFinder` class, with access to the `.edges`, `.intersections`, `.cells`, and `.tables` properties.|
For example:
```python
pdf=pdfplumber.open("path/to/my.pdf")
page=pdf.pages[0]
page.extract_table()
```
[Click here for a more detailed example.](examples/notebooks/extract-table-ca-warn-report.ipynb)
### Table-extraction settings
By default, `extract_tables` uses the page's vertical and horizontal lines (or rectangle edges) as cell-separators. But the method is highly customizable via the `table_settings` argument. The possible settings, and their defaults:
|`"explicit_vertical_lines"`| A list of vertical lines that explicitly demarcate cells in the table. Can be used in combination with any of the strategies above. Items in the list should be either numbers — indicating the `x` coordinate of a line the full height of the page — or `line`/`rect`/`curve` objects.|
|`"explicit_horizontal_lines"`| A list of horizontal lines that explicitly demarcate cells in the table. Can be used in combination with any of the strategies above. Items in the list should be either numbers — indicating the `y` coordinate of a line the full height of the page — or `line`/`rect`/`curve` objects.|
|`"snap_tolerance"`| Parallel lines within `snap_tolerance` pixels will be "snapped" to the same horizontal or vertical position.|
|`"join_tolerance"`| Line segments on the same infinite line, and whose ends are within `join_tolerance` of one another, will be "joined" into a single line segment.|
|`"edge_min_length"`| Edges shorter than `edge_min_length` will be discarded before attempting to reconstruct the table.|
|`"text_tolerance"`, `"text_x_tolerance"`, `"text_y_tolerance"`| When the `text` strategy searches for words, it will expect the individual letters in each word to be no more than `text_tolerance` pixels apart.|
|`"intersection_tolerance"`, `"intersection_x_tolerance"`, `"intersection_y_tolerance"`| When combining edges into cells, orthogonal edges must be within `intersection_tolerance` pixels to be considered intersecting.|
| `"lines"` | Use the page's graphical lines — including the sides of rectangle objects — as the borders of potential table-cells. |
| `"lines_strict"` | Use the page's graphical lines — but *not* the sides of rectangle objects — as the borders of potential table-cells. |
| `"text"` | For `vertical_strategy`: Deduce the (imaginary) lines that connect the left, right, or center of words on the page, and use those lines as the borders of potential table-cells. For `horizontal_strategy`, the same but using the tops of words. |
| `"explicit"` | Only use the lines explicitly defined in `explicit_vertical_lines` / `explicit_horizontal_lines`. |
Sometimes PDF files can contain forms that include inputs that people can fill out and save. While values in form fields appear like other text in a PDF file, form data is handled differently. If you want the gory details, see page 671 of this [specification](https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference_archive/pdf_reference_1-7.pdf).
`pdfplumber` doesn't have an interface for working with form data, but you can access it using `pdfplumber`'s wrappers around `pdfminer`.
For example, this snippet will retrieve form field names and values and store them in a dictionary. You may have to modify this script to handle cases like nested fields (see page 676 of the specification).
- [Using `extract_table` on a California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) report](examples/notebooks/extract-table-ca-warn-report.ipynb). Demonstrates basic visual debugging and table extraction.
- [Using `extract_table` on the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System PDFs](examples/notebooks/extract-table-nics.ipynb). Demonstrates how to use visual debugging to find optimal table extraction settings. Also demonstrates `Page.crop(...)` and `Page.extract_text(...).`
- [Extracting fixed-width data from a San Jose PD firearm search report](examples/notebooks/san-jose-pd-firearm-report.ipynb), an example of using `Page.extract_text(...)`.
Several other Python libraries help users to extract information from PDFs. As a broad overview, `pdfplumber` distinguishes itself from other PDF processing libraries by combining these features:
- Easy access to detailed information about each PDF object
- Higher-level, customizable methods for extracting text and tables
- Tightly integrated visual debugging
- Other useful utility functions, such as filtering objects via a crop-box
It's also helpful to know what features `pdfplumber` does __not__ provide:
- PDF *generation*
- PDF *modification*
- Optical character recognition (OCR)
- Strong support for extracting tables from OCR'ed documents
- [`pdfminer.six`](https://github.com/pdfminer/pdfminer.six) provides the foundation for `pdfplumber`. It primarily focuses on parsing PDFs, analyzing PDF layouts and object positioning, and extracting text. It does not provide tools for table extraction or visual debugging.
- [`pymupdf`](https://pymupdf.readthedocs.io/) is substantially faster than `pdfminer.six` (and thus also `pdfplumber`) and can generate and modify PDFs, but the library requires installation of non-Python software (MuPDF). It also does not enable easy access to shape objects (rectangles, lines, etc.), and does not provide table-extraction or visual debugging tools.
- [`camelot`](https://github.com/camelot-dev/camelot), [`tabula-py`](https://github.com/chezou/tabula-py), and [`pdftables`](https://github.com/drj11/pdftables) all focus primarily on extracting tables. In some cases, they may be better suited to the particular tables you are trying to extract.
- [`PyPDF2`](https://github.com/mstamy2/PyPDF2) and its successor libraries appear no longer to be maintained.
