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JLB · 07-08-2009, 12:34 PM

...possible to read existing PDF w/ PHP? I am writing an article on this and am pretty much done, except I need to know if the website I am referencing to, http://www.devshed.com/c/a/PHP/PDF-Generation-With-PHP/6/ states somewhere in the article if it is possible to read existing PDF with PHP? And where is it in the article if it does??

10 pts for best answer!!!!

Silas G · 07-08-2009, 12:35 PM

No.

The article you referenced is about pdf creation, not reading a pdf. If you want to be able to read a pdf, you can use pdf2ps | ps2a or the pdftotext program that comes with xpdf. Xpdf also has a program that will extract pdf images. You can of course also just call the adobe reader. Any way you slice it though, you're going to want to pass something through the shell rather than have PHP do any low level stuff, although I'm sure if you know pdf or postscript well enough you could write something that matches the key/value pairs in the pdf/ps to a php array.

Your best bet is to use something to turn the pdf into text and images, and then use php to glue those together the way you want them.

07-08-2009, 12:34 PM	#1 (permalink)
JLB Status: Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 0	From the info in the article on this website can anyone find if its... ...possible to read existing PDF w/ PHP? I am writing an article on this and am pretty much done, except I need to know if the website I am referencing to, http://www.devshed.com/c/a/PHP/PDF-Generation-With-PHP/6/ states somewhere in the article if it is possible to read existing PDF with PHP? And where is it in the article if it does?? 10 pts for best answer!!!!

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07-08-2009, 12:35 PM	#2 (permalink)
Silas G Status: Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 1	No. The article you referenced is about pdf creation, not reading a pdf. If you want to be able to read a pdf, you can use pdf2ps \| ps2a or the pdftotext program that comes with xpdf. Xpdf also has a program that will extract pdf images. You can of course also just call the adobe reader. Any way you slice it though, you're going to want to pass something through the shell rather than have PHP do any low level stuff, although I'm sure if you know pdf or postscript well enough you could write something that matches the key/value pairs in the pdf/ps to a php array. Your best bet is to use something to turn the pdf into text and images, and then use php to glue those together the way you want them.