I\'d like to write a small script (which will run on a headless Linux server) that reads a PDF, highlights text that matches anything in an array of strings that I pass, the
Yes, it is possible with a combination of pdfminer (pip install pdfminer.six
) and PyPDF2
.
First, find the coordinates (e.g. like this). Then highlight it:
#!/usr/bin/env python
"""Create sample highlight in a PDF file."""
from PyPDF2 import PdfFileWriter, PdfFileReader
from PyPDF2.generic import (
DictionaryObject,
NumberObject,
FloatObject,
NameObject,
TextStringObject,
ArrayObject
)
def create_highlight(x1, y1, x2, y2, meta, color=[0, 1, 0]):
"""
Create a highlight for a PDF.
Parameters
----------
x1, y1 : float
bottom left corner
x2, y2 : float
top right corner
meta : dict
keys are "author" and "contents"
color : iterable
Three elements, (r,g,b)
"""
new_highlight = DictionaryObject()
new_highlight.update({
NameObject("/F"): NumberObject(4),
NameObject("/Type"): NameObject("/Annot"),
NameObject("/Subtype"): NameObject("/Highlight"),
NameObject("/T"): TextStringObject(meta["author"]),
NameObject("/Contents"): TextStringObject(meta["contents"]),
NameObject("/C"): ArrayObject([FloatObject(c) for c in color]),
NameObject("/Rect"): ArrayObject([
FloatObject(x1),
FloatObject(y1),
FloatObject(x2),
FloatObject(y2)
]),
NameObject("/QuadPoints"): ArrayObject([
FloatObject(x1),
FloatObject(y2),
FloatObject(x2),
FloatObject(y2),
FloatObject(x1),
FloatObject(y1),
FloatObject(x2),
FloatObject(y1)
]),
})
return new_highlight
def add_highlight_to_page(highlight, page, output):
"""
Add a highlight to a PDF page.
Parameters
----------
highlight : Highlight object
page : PDF page object
output : PdfFileWriter object
"""
highlight_ref = output._addObject(highlight)
if "/Annots" in page:
page[NameObject("/Annots")].append(highlight_ref)
else:
page[NameObject("/Annots")] = ArrayObject([highlight_ref])
def main():
pdf_input = PdfFileReader(open("samples/test3.pdf", "rb"))
pdf_output = PdfFileWriter()
page1 = pdf_input.getPage(0)
highlight = create_highlight(89.9206, 573.1283, 376.849, 591.3563, {
"author": "John Doe",
"contents": "Lorem ipsum"
})
add_highlight_to_page(highlight, page1, pdf_output)
pdf_output.addPage(page1)
output_stream = open("output.pdf", "wb")
pdf_output.write(output_stream)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()