pdfplumber-cli

Command-line tool to extract text, characters, words, and tables from PDF documents.

pdfplumber-cli is the CLI frontend for pdfplumber-rs, a Rust port of Python's pdfplumber.

Installation

cargo install pdfplumber-cli

Usage

pdfplumber <COMMAND> [OPTIONS] <FILE>

Subcommands

Global Options

Extract Text

# Extract all text
pdfplumber text document.pdf

# Extract text from specific pages
pdfplumber text document.pdf --pages 1,3-5

# Layout-preserving extraction
pdfplumber text document.pdf --layout

# JSON output (one object per page)
pdfplumber text document.pdf --format json

Extract Characters

# Tab-separated output (default)
pdfplumber chars document.pdf

# JSON output with all fields (text, fontname, size, bbox, etc.)
pdfplumber chars document.pdf --format json

# CSV output
pdfplumber chars document.pdf --format csv --pages 1

Example CSV output:

page,text,x0,top,x1,bottom,fontname,size
1,H,72.00,72.00,84.00,84.00,Helvetica,12.00
1,e,84.00,72.00,90.72,84.00,Helvetica,12.00

Extract Words

# Tab-separated output (default)
pdfplumber words document.pdf

# JSON output
pdfplumber words document.pdf --format json

# CSV output with custom tolerances
pdfplumber words document.pdf --format csv --x-tolerance 5.0 --y-tolerance 2.5

Example CSV output:

page,text,x0,top,x1,bottom
1,Hello,72.00,72.00,108.00,84.00
1,World,112.00,72.00,148.00,84.00

Extract Tables

# Human-readable grid format (default)
pdfplumber tables document.pdf

# JSON output
pdfplumber tables document.pdf --format json

# CSV output
pdfplumber tables document.pdf --format csv

# Use stream strategy instead of lattice
pdfplumber tables document.pdf --strategy stream

# Tune detection parameters
pdfplumber tables document.pdf --snap-tolerance 5.0 --join-tolerance 4.0 --text-tolerance 2.0

Example grid output:

--- Table 1 (page 1, bbox: [72.00, 100.00, 540.00, 300.00]) ---
Name   | Age | City
Alice  | 30  | New York
Bob    | 25  | London

Inspect PDF Info

# Text summary
pdfplumber info document.pdf

# JSON output
pdfplumber info document.pdf --format json

# Specific pages only
pdfplumber info document.pdf --pages 1-3

Example text output:

=== PDF Info ===
Pages: 3

--- Page 1 (612.00 x 792.00, rotation: 0°) ---
  Chars:  1250
  Lines:  45
  Rects:  12
  Curves: 0
  Images: 2

=== Summary ===
Total chars:  3200
Total tables: 1

Output Formats

Page Selection

Use --pages to select specific pages (1-indexed):

• --pages 1 — single page
• --pages 1-5 — range
• --pages 1,3,5 — list
• --pages 1-3,7,10-12 — mixed

Omit --pages to process all pages.

License

MIT OR Apache-2.0