Using COM with PDF files

[Heezea]

Is there any way to use COM on PDF files? I'd like to be able to extract pages from the PDF based on a search for specific text. I've used various programs to see PDFs, including Adobe Acrobat Pro, Adobe Reader, and Bluebeam Revu. Right now I'm able to mostly automate the process to extract the pages using the program's user interface, but this is somewhat error prone and also fairly dependent on how each person has the specific program configured.

[Blackholyman]

The code below works ONLY with Adobe Professional

Code: Select all

#Persistent

AVDoc := ComObjCreate("AcroExch.AVDoc")

FileSelectFile, path,,, Select a pdf, pdf (*.pdf)

AVDoc.Open(path, "")

AVDoc.BringToFront()

if AVDoc.FindText( "Back", true, true,  bReset := true )
	msgbox, the word was found once no more info to be hade.

AVDoc.close(1)

AVDoc=

return

More on finding text, vba examples http://www.myengineeringworld.net/2014/ ... h-vba.html

[Chunjee]

Alternatively the method have used is to convert the entire pdf thing to txt with Xpdf (http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html). Then you can read the file as you normally would. The drawback is you need to include that exe.

Might look like:

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RunWait, %comspec% /c %A_ScriptDir%\PDFtoTEXT.exe %TheSelectedPDF% %A_ScriptDir%\%TheTXT%.txt,,Hide

I will try the way Blackholyman has posted sometime though.

[Jovannb]

Hi,

as I learned to know, everything you would like to do is possibel with Ghostscript (GS) and its available utility programs.
Once you got it, how to deal with GS you will see almost everything in manipulating Postscript and PDF-files is possible, you should give it a try.

regards

J.B.

[Chunjee]

Seems like overkill. Whats the benefit?

regards

J.B.

[Jovannb]

the benefit is, as soon as you know how to call GS you can e.g.
# use tesseract (OCR) to extract text
# join files (PS oder PDF) to one single PDF
# extract pages
# rotate pages
# modifiy PDF-doc properties (including initial/opening view, bookmarks...)
and so on, and it is free

With the following code snippet you join 2 Postscript-Files (Ps1 and Ps2) to a single PDF

Code: Select all

formattime, timestamp,, yyyyMMdd_HHmmss	
timestamp_output_file:="c:\temp\" timestamp ".pdf"
ps1:="c:\temp\postscriptfile1.ps"
ps2:="c:\temp\postscriptfile2.ps"
ghostscriptcall:="c:\Program Files\gs\gs9.07\bin\gswin64c.exe -q -dNOSAFER -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.7 -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dLockDistillerParams=false -dAutoRotatePages=/PageByPage -dEmbedAllFonts=true -dSubsetFonts=true -r600 -dDownsampleMonoImages=true -dMonoImageDownsampleThreshold=1.5 -dMonoImageDownsampleType=/Bicubic -dMonoImageResolution=600 -dDownsampleGrayImages=true -dGrayImageDownsampleThreshold=1.5 -dGrayImageDownsampleType=/Bicubic -dGrayImageResolution=300 -dDownsampleColorImages=true -dColorImageDownsampleThreshold=1.5 -dColorImageDownsampleType=/Bicubic -dColorImageResolution=150 -dConvertCMYKImagesToRGB=false -sOutputFile=" timestamp_output_file " -c .setpdfwrite -f " ps1 " "  ps2 

run, %ghostscriptcall%,,Hide

For creating that Postscriptfiles you can use Ghostscript printer driver (..\lib\.. in GS installation directory), then connect this printer to a local port which is called e.g. "c:\temp\postcriptfile.ps", thats all. When you now print to that driver and you use GS to create Pdf's as mentioned above, you've a 100% free pdf-creation-setup with one single program with an amazing amount of possibilities to manipulate pdfs..that works for existing pdf's as well.

J.B.

[becofuan]

Please refer to this: http://www.utteraccess.com/forum/Extrac ... 07085.html
Here's a similar topic about extracting PDF page by searching specific text.
Hope it can help you.