PDF Parser in C | Extracting Text

Today let's take a look at the PDF file format. In this video we will write a program that extracts text information from a PDF file using C and zlib.

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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
04:46 Code
36:15 Results and Outro

[acestandard]

I am always so amazed by how Alex and Tsoding make programming look so easy.
They aren't trying to use every complex feature the language has but just what can get the job done.

[luserdroog]

The objects don't necessarily have to start immediately after the header lines. Since objects are all located by file offsets in the xref table at the end, you could hide data between lines 3 and 4 (adjusting the xrefs of course) and most software should ignore it.

[JaimeSanchoMolero]

Could this kind of approach be used to extract text from pdfs that have columnar text? Like an cientific article, which may be organized in 2 columns. This text is read:
- 1st column -> up - down
- 2nd column -> up - down

There are Python libraries that do not extract this text in order

Also, what about tables? Extract text from tables in order, usung sep for both rows and columns?

[hi_arav]

This is great. +1 sub and looking forward to more

[korigamik]

This is good, I wonder why pdf readers don't allow this kind of functionality? maybe the big corporate doesn't want you to download their images burh

[YabseraPython]

I am trying it with pure golang no library.

[AK-vxdy]

With out any library?
Brave... I done text extraction using some library wich braked pdf to all logical parts, it was still hard becuase of characters maps.
Beware that pdf can be constructed in many ways so probably your parser will fail on many.