PDF parsing library compatible with .NET Core

Question

I'm looking to parse some PDF (extract paragraph from them). I used iTextSharp in the past, but it doesn't support .NET Core.

I also tried this lib: https://github.com/VahidN/iTextSharp.LGPLv2.Core but the text extraction doesn't work very nicely. It just writes random words, not in the correct order, with a lot of incorrect symbols, really not usable.

Answer 1

Essential PDF can be used to load PDFs and extract content from them..NET Core is also supported.

//Load an existing PDF.
PdfLoadedDocument loadedDocument = new PdfLoadedDocument(fileName);
//Load the first page.
PdfPageBase page = loadedDocument.Pages[0];
//Extract text from first page.
string extractedText = page.ExtractText();
//Close the document
loadedDocument.Close(true);

The entire product is available for free with no limitations through the community license if you qualify.

Note: I work for Syncfusion

Answer 2

XFINIUM.PDF library supports text extraction on .NET Core platform.

// Load the PDF document
PdfFixedDocument document = new PdfFixedDocument(input);
// Create a content extractor for the desired page
PdfContentExtractor ce = new PdfContentExtractor(document.Pages[0]);
// Extract text as objects with information about position, font, color, etc
PdfTextFragmentCollection tfc = ce.ExtractTextFragments();
// Or extract the text as a simple string.
string text = ce.ExtractText();

Evaluation version is available for download on nuget.org, package id is xfinium.pdf.netcore.

Disclaimer: I work for the company the develops XFINIUM.PDF library.

Answer 3

PdfLib CORE is a library for modern .NET Core applications to edit and read PDF files.

Snippet from the readme.md:

var dpiX, dpiY = 300D;
var i = 0;

using var pdfDocument = new PdfDocument(File.Open(<<file>>, FileMode.Open));
foreach (var page in pdfDocument.Pages)
{
    using var pdfPage = page;
    var pageWidth = (int) (dpiX * pdfPage.Size.Width / 72);
    var pageHeight = (int) (dpiY * pdfPage.Size.Height / 72);

    using var bitmap = new PdfiumBitmap(pageWidth, pageHeight, true);
    pdfPage.Render(bitmap, PageOrientations.Normal, RenderingFlags.LcdText);
    using var stream = bitmap.AsBmpStream(dpiX, dpiY);
    
    // <<< do something with your stream...>>> 
}