# jalan/pdftotext

Repository: https://github.com/jalan/pdftotext
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/pdftotext
Language: Python
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Archived: true
Last push: 2026-06-28T00:00:42+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 89, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3421, "days_push": 67, "days_rel": 635, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: archived
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1065, forks 112 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:26.780589+00:00)

## What it is
pdftotext is a Python library for simple PDF text extraction, built as a binding around the Poppler C++ library. It supports reading text page-by-page or as a whole, including password-protected PDFs.

## Use cases
- extract text from pdf files in python
- parse pdf documents into plain text
- read individual pages from a pdf
- extract text from password-protected pdfs
- convert pdf content to strings for indexing

## When to choose
- you need fast, simple PDF text extraction in Python
- you can install native Poppler dependencies
- you want a minimal API for page-wise text access

## When to avoid
- you need layout-aware or structured PDF parsing
- you cannot install native C++ dependencies like poppler-cpp
- you need a project actively developed on GitHub (it has moved to SourceHut)

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: pdf, parser, ocr
- domain: pdf, files, developer-tools
- platform: python, windows, cross-platform
- tags: pdf-text-extraction, poppler, python-binding, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- jalan/pdftotext (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:26.780589+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:55:30.091199+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/jalan/pdftotext (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:26.780589+00:00, sha bdde0596b4af)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.