tabula-extractor

Extract tables from PDF files. tabula-extractor is the table extraction engine that powers Tabula, now available as a library and command line program.

Installation

At the moment, tabula-extractor only works with JRuby. Install JRuby and run

jruby -S gem install tabula-extractor

Usage

Tabula helps you extract tables from PDFs

Usage:
       tabula [options] <pdf_file>
where [options] are:
Tabula helps you extract tables from PDFs
       --pages, -p <s>:   Comma separated list of ranges. Examples: --pages
                          1-3,5-7 or --pages 3. Default is --pages 1 (default:
                          1)
        --area, -a <s>:   Portion of the page to analyze
                          (top,left,bottom,right). Example: --area
                          269.875,12.75,790.5,561. Default is entire page
     --columns, -c <s>:   X coordinates of column boundaries. Example --columns
                          10.1,20.2,30.3
    --password, -s <s>:   Password to decrypt document. Default is empty
                          (default: )
           --guess, -g:   Guess the portion of the page to analyze per page.
           --debug, -d:   Print detected table areas instead of processing.
      --format, -f <s>:   Output format (CSV,TSV,HTML,JSON) (default: CSV)
     --outfile, -o <s>:   Write output to <file> instead of STDOUT (default: -)
     --spreadsheet, -r:   Force PDF to be extracted using spreadsheet-style
                          extraction (if there are ruling lines separating each
                          cell, as in a PDF of an Excel spreadsheet)
  --no-spreadsheet, -n:   Force PDF not to be extracted using spreadsheet-style
                          extraction (if there are ruling lines separating each
                          cell, as in a PDF of an Excel spreadsheet)
          --silent, -i:   Suppress all stderr output.
--use-line-returns, -u:   Use embedded line returns in cells.
         --version, -v:   Print version and exit
            --help, -h:   Show this message

Scripting examples

tabula-extractor is a RubyGem that you can use to programmatically extract tabular data, using the Tabula engine, in your scripts or applications. We don't have docs yet, but the tests are a good source of information.

Here's a very basic example:

require 'tabula'
 
pdf_file_path = "whatever.pdf"
outfilename = "whatever.csv"
 
out = open(outfilename, 'w')
 
extractor = Tabula::Extraction::ObjectExtractor.new(pdf_file_path, :all )
extractor.extract.each do |pdf_page|
  pdf_page.spreadsheets.each do |spreadsheet|
    out << spreadsheet.to_csv
    out << "\n\n"
  end
end
out.close

Notes

tabula-extractor uses LSD: a Line Segment Detector by Rafael Grompone von Gioi, Jérémie Jakubowicz, Jean-Michel Morel and Gregory Randall.