How to convert PDF to text file in iTextSharp

Question

I have to retrieve text from PDF file. But using the following code I only get empty text file.

for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
{
    pagenumber = i + 1;
            


        

Answer 1

//call Create_pdf() function when Done button pressed;

EditText et_Text=findViewById(R.id.EditText);

String projectname="MyPdf";

public  void Create_pdf(){
    Document doc =new Document();
    String outPath= Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory()+"/"+projectname+".pdf";
    try {
       PdfWriter.getInstance(doc, new FileOutputStream(outPath));
       doc.open();
       doc.add(new Paragraph(et_Text.getText().toString()));
       doc.close();
    } catch (DocumentException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
} 

Answer 2

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf.parser;

namespace Pdf2Text
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            if (!args.Any()) return;

            var file = args[0];
            var output = Path.ChangeExtension(file, ".txt");
            if (!File.Exists(file)) return;

            var bytes = File.ReadAllBytes(file);
            File.WriteAllText(output, ConvertToText(bytes), Encoding.UTF8);
        }

        private static string ConvertToText(byte[] bytes)
        {
            var sb = new StringBuilder();

            try
            {
                var reader = new PdfReader(bytes);
                var numberOfPages = reader.NumberOfPages;

                for (var currentPageIndex = 1; currentPageIndex <= numberOfPages; currentPageIndex++)
                {
                    sb.Append(PdfTextExtractor.GetTextFromPage(reader, currentPageIndex));
                }
            }
            catch (Exception exception)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(exception.Message);
            }

            return sb.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

For text extraction with iTextSharp, take a current version of that library and use

PdfTextExtractor.GetTextFromPage(reader, pageNumber);

Beware, there is a bug in the text extraction code in some 5.3.x version which has meanwhile been fixed in trunk. You, therefore, might want to checkout the trunk revision.