Pankaj Sonawane
Design | Code | Automate
"Power of Python in PDF Automation"
A Comprehensive Guide to Python PDF Libraries
There is always a need for a offline and Free PDF tool which can be versatile and solve all basic requirements related to PDF manipulation or Automation. For example, If our only requirement is to watermark a PDF files why we need to purchase an entire software, or we just need to split or delete or replace PDF or use of PDF files to extract tables is our only requirement, there is no need to buy the entire bulk of software and pay for the same.
In this extensive blog post, after understanding what are PDF files, we will look at a few Python modules that allow us to automate PDF handling. We will look at the most well-known Python modules designed to accelerate PDF automation and provide you a competitive advantage in document processing and data extraction.
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Table of Contents
I. What are PDF Files?
Adobe Systems created the popular PDF (Portable Document Format) file type in the early 1990s. They are designed to display documents consistently and accurately across different platforms and devices. Since PDF files may be created or viewed on any device with a PDF reader, they are incredibly flexible and available to everyone. Key characteristics of PDF files include: Cross-Platform Compatibility: Without the requirement for particular software or fonts, PDF files can be opened and viewed on a variety of operating systems, including Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.
Document Preservation: In order to ensure that the document appears the same on all devices, PDFs maintain the formatting, fonts, graphics, and layout of the original page.
Security: PDF files can be password protected to limit access or stop illegal changes. They are therefore excellent for exchanging private or sensitive information.
Compact Size: Large files can be compressed using PDFs to reduce their size without noticeably sacrificing quality. This function helps with effective storage of documents and sharing.
Interactivity: Users can move within the document or access external resources thanks to PDF files' support for hyperlinks, bookmarks, and interactive components.
Print-Ready: For print documents, PDFs are frequently utilized due to their accurate layout and resolution independence.
Read-Only: PDF files are read-only by default to protect users from unintentionally changing the content. But certain PDF editors can change already-existing PDFs.
Accessibility: PFor people with disabilities, such as screen readers for visually challenged users, PDFs can incorporate accessibility features like tags and alt-text.
PDF files have taken over as the industry standard for exchanging documents, presentations, reports, forms, e-books, and much more because of their adaptability and dependability. They are frequently employed in a number of different fields, such as business, education, government, and publishing. Word processors, design applications, and conversion tools are frequently used to create PDF files from other file types like DOCX, PPTX, and pictures. Overall, the popularity of PDF files is evidence of its capacity to preserve document integrity and guarantee uniform viewing and printing experiences for users everywhere.
II. List and Prices of Premium PDF Editors
| Software | Description | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Adobe Acrobat Pro DC | Adobe Acrobat Pro DC is a comprehensive and industry-standard PDF editor developed by Adobe. It offers advanced features for creating, editing, converting, and organizing PDF files. | $14.99 to $24.99 per month. |
 |
Foxit PhantomPDF | Foxit PhantomPDF is a powerful PDF editor with a user-friendly interface. It provides tools for editing, converting, and securing PDFs | $8.99 per month |
 |
Nitro Pro | Nitro Pro is a feature-rich PDF editor that allows users to create, edit, and convert PDFs. It is known for its user-friendly interface and productivity-enhancing features. | $159 per year |
 |
PDFelement | PDFelement by Wondershare is a versatile PDF editor that offers a range of features, including editing, form creation, and OCR (Optical Character Recognition). | The standard version starts at $69 per year, while the professional version starts at $99 per year. |
 |
PDF-XChange Editor | PDF-XChange Editor is a fast and feature-rich PDF editor that includes a wide range of tools for annotating, editing, and securing PDFs. | The Standard version starts at $43.50, and the Pro version starts at $54.50. |
 |
PDFpen | PDFpen is a PDF editor designed for macOS and iOS devices. It offers various editing and annotation tools. | The standard version for macOS is priced at $79.95, and the Pro version is priced at $129.95. |
 |
Smallpdf | Smallpdf is an online platform that offers various PDF tools, including editing, conversion, and compression | $12 per month. |
Please note that software prices and plans may have changed since my last update. Additionally, some editors may offer free versions or trial periods with limited features. Before making a purchase, it's always a good idea to visit the official websites of the respective PDF editors to check for the most up-to-date pricing and features.
Online PDF editors like IlovePDF do not guarantee the privacy and security of the processed documents, and pose high data confidentiality and integrity risks.
III. Why Python for PDF manipulation and Automation?
Python with its robust libraries, simplicity, versatility, and strong community support, stands as a formidable choice for PDF automation, enabling developers to create efficient, scalable, and competitive solutions for diverse business needs.
Versatile Libraries:
Python boasts a wide array of powerful libraries like PyPDF2, pdfminer, and ReportLab, offering extensive functionality for reading, writing, and manipulating PDF files with ease.
Simplified Syntax:
Python's clean and readable syntax makes it a preferred choice for PDF automation, reducing development time and enhancing code maintainability.
Cross-Platform Compatibility:
Python runs seamlessly on various platforms, enabling PDF automation across Windows, macOS, and Linux systems without modification.
Vast Community Support:
Python's extensive community ensures a wealth of online resources, tutorials, and forums, allowing developers to seek solutions and collaborate on PDF automation challenges.
Integration Capabilities:
Python seamlessly integrates with other programming languages and technologies, facilitating smooth interactions with third-party applications for end-to-end PDF automation solutions.
Web Frameworks for PDF Generation:
Python's web frameworks like Django and Flask enable dynamic PDF generation, making it ideal for generating custom reports, invoices, and documents.
Natural Language Processing:
Python's NLP libraries enable text extraction from PDFs, facilitating content analysis, sentiment analysis, and data extraction for further automation.
Open-Source Ecosystem:
Python's open-source nature means free access to a vast range of PDF automation tools and libraries, fostering cost-effective solutions.
Rapid Prototyping:
Python's interpreted nature allows for quick prototyping and testing, expediting the development cycle and gaining a competitive edge in PDF automation projects.
Scalability and Performance:
Python's versatility ensures PDF automation solutions can be scaled effortlessly, while optimized libraries like PyMuPDF deliver high-performance processing for large-scale PDF manipulation.
IV. The Ultimate List of Python Libraries for PDF Automation and File Manipulation: Finding the Best Fit for Your Needs
1. PyPDF4
PyPDF4 is a pure-Python library for PDF processing, built on top a popular library PyPDF2 that allows users to extract, merge, and manipulate PDF files. It provides an easy-to-use interface for performing basic PDF operations. The library is open-source and actively maintained, making it a reliable choice for beginners and small-scale projects. By virtue of being a Pure-Python library, it is able to run on any Python platform without any dependencies. Moreover, it allows PDF manipulation in memory by leveraging the StringIO objects instead of the file streams. Therefore, it is mainly useful for websites that manage or manipulate PDFs. However, PyPDF2 may lack some advanced features, limiting its potential for complex PDF manipulations.
Example of PyPDF2 to encrypt pdf with password and delete pages from pdf
#pip install PyPDF2
import PyPDF2
def encrypt_pdf(input_file, output_file, password):
"""Encrypt a PDF file with a password."""
with open(input_file, 'rb') as file:
pdf = PyPDF2.PdfReader(file)
writer = PyPDF2.PdfWriter()
for page_num in range(len(pdf.pages)):
writer.add_page(pdf.pages[page_num])
writer.encrypt(password)
with open(output_file, 'wb') as output:
writer.write(output)
def delete_pages_from_pdf(input_file, output_file, pages_to_delete):
"""Delete specific pages from a PDF file."""
with open(input_file, 'rb') as file:
pdf = PyPDF2.PdfReader(file)
writer = PyPDF2.PdfWriter()
for page_num in range(len(pdf.pages)):
if page_num + 1 not in pages_to_delete:
writer.add_page(pdf.pages[page_num])
with open(output_file, 'wb') as output:
writer.write(output)
# Example usage:
if __name__ == "__main__":
# Encrypt PDF
input_pdf = "input.pdf"
output_encrypted_pdf = "encrypted_output.pdf"
password = "my_secret_password"
encrypt_pdf(input_pdf, output_encrypted_pdf, password)
print("PDF encrypted successfully.")
# Delete Pages from PDF
input_pdf = "input.pdf"
output_pdf_without_deleted_pages = "output_without_deleted_pages.pdf"
pages_to_delete = [2, 4] # List of page numbers to delete (e.g., page 2 and page 4)
delete_pages_from_pdf(input_pdf, output_pdf_without_deleted_pages, pages_to_delete)
print("Pages deleted successfully.")2. pdfminer
pdfminer is a powerful PDF parsing library that enables developers to extract text, images, and other elements from PDF documents. Its primary focus is on text extraction and analysis, making it ideal for projects involving data mining, natural language processing (NLP), and content analysis. For tasks like web scraping from PDFs or performing text analytics, pdfminer is an excellent choice.
Following is the code to extract images from PDF using pdfminer
#pip install pdfminer.six
import os
from pdfminer.high_level import extract_pages
from pdfminer.layout import LTImage
def extract_images_from_pdf(input_pdf, output_folder):
"""Extract images from a PDF file."""
if not os.path.exists(output_folder):
os.makedirs(output_folder)
page_num = 0
for page_layout in extract_pages(input_pdf):
page_num += 1
images = [element for element in page_layout if isinstance(element, LTImage)]
for image_index, image in enumerate(images):
image_stream = image.stream.get_rawdata()
image_name = f"image_page_{page_num}_{image_index + 1}.jpg"
image_path = os.path.join(output_folder, image_name)
with open(image_path, 'wb') as image_file:
image_file.write(image_stream)
# Example usage:
if __name__ == "__main__":
input_pdf = "input.pdf"
output_folder = "extracted_images"
extract_images_from_pdf(input_pdf, output_folder)
print("Images extracted successfully.")3. ReportLab
If your project involves generating new PDFs from scratch, ReportLab is the go-to library. It provides tools to create complex and customized PDFs, including charts, tables, and vector graphics. ReportLab's versatility makes it suitable for generating reports, invoices, and other dynamic PDF documents. However, keep in mind that this library may require a steeper learning curve than other options due to its rich feature set. ReportLab comes with two versions: open-source ReportLab, and commercial ReportLab PLUS. The library has three major layers:
- A page layout engine that constructs documents from elements such as paragraphs, fonts, tables, headlines, and vector graphics.
- A charts and widgets library for building data graphics.
- A graphics canvas API that portrays PDF pages.
Following is the code to demonstrate an example of using the ReportLab library to generate a PDF report with a title, some text content, and a table.
#pip install reportlab
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.lib import colors
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Table, TableStyle
def generate_pdf_report(output_file):
"""Generate a simple PDF report using the ReportLab library."""
# Create a PDF document with the specified output file name and page size (letter)
doc = SimpleDocTemplate(output_file, pagesize=letter)
# Sample stylesheet for formatting text
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
# Title and content for the report
title = "Sample PDF Report"
content = """
This is a simple PDF report generated using the ReportLab library in Python.
ReportLab is a versatile tool that allows you to create customized PDF documents with ease.
You can add various elements like text, images, tables, and even charts to make rich PDFs.
"""
# Create Paragraph objects for the title and content
title_paragraph = Paragraph(title, styles['Title'])
content_paragraph = Paragraph(content, styles['Normal'])
# Create a table with sample data
data = [['Name', 'Age', 'Country'],
['John Doe', '30', 'USA'],
['Jane Smith', '28', 'Canada'],
['Mark Johnson', '35', 'UK']]
table = Table(data, hAlign='LEFT')
# Apply table style to the table
table.setStyle(TableStyle([('BACKGROUND', (0, 0), (-1, 0), colors.grey),
('TEXTCOLOR', (0, 0), (-1, 0), colors.whitesmoke),
('ALIGN', (0, 0), (-1, -1), 'CENTER'),
('FONTNAME', (0, 0), (-1, 0), 'Helvetica-Bold'),
('BOTTOMPADDING', (0, 0), (-1, 0), 12),
('BACKGROUND', (0, 1), (-1, -1), colors.beige),
('GRID', (0, 0), (-1, -1), 1, colors.black)]))
# Build the PDF document with the title, content, and table
content = [title_paragraph, content_paragraph, table]
doc.build(content)
# Example usage:
if __name__ == "__main__":
output_file = "sample_report.pdf"
generate_pdf_report(output_file)
print("PDF report generated successfully.")4. PyMuPDF
PyMuPDF, also known as fitz, is a powerful Python binding for the MuPDF library. It excels in rendering high-quality PDFs, making it an ideal choice for projects involving PDF rendering and extracting metadata from PDFs. PyMuPDF's strength lies in its performance, making it suitable for large-scale PDF processing tasks. However, its complex API might be challenging for beginners.
PyMuPDF allows a plethora of features when dealing with PDF documents, which include:
- Accessing the PDF document metadata, links, and bookmarks.
- Rendering the document pages in raster formats, like PNG, or the vector formats, like SVG.
- Extracting text and images and searching for text.
- Converting the document pages to other formats.
- Remodeling a document in a way that supports double-sided printing, embedding logos, or watermarks.
- Decrypting a PDF document.
Following is the example to extract images from a pdf file
#pip install PyMuPDF
#pip install pillow
import os
import fitz
from PIL import Image
def extract_images_from_pdf(input_pdf, output_folder):
"""Extract images from a PDF file using PyMuPDF."""
if not os.path.exists(output_folder):
os.makedirs(output_folder)
pdf_document = fitz.open(input_pdf)
for page_num in range(pdf_document.page_count):
page = pdf_document.load_page(page_num)
image_list = page.get_images(full=True)
for image_index, img_info in enumerate(image_list):
image_pixmap = fitz.Pixmap(pdf_document, img_info[0])
if image_pixmap.n < 5: # Ensure it's a 4-color image (CMYK or RGB)
image = Image.frombytes("RGB", [image_pixmap.width, image_pixmap.height], image_pixmap.samples)
image_name = f"image_page_{page_num + 1}_{image_index + 1}.png"
image_path = os.path.join(output_folder, image_name)
image.save(image_path)
image_pixmap.close()
pdf_document.close()
# Example usage:
if __name__ == "__main__":
input_pdf = "input.pdf"
output_folder = "extracted_images"
extract_images_from_pdf(input_pdf, output_folder)
print("Images extracted successfully.")5. pdfrw
pdfrw is a versatile library that enables developers to read, write, and modify PDF files. Its simplicity and ease of use make it an excellent choice for beginners and small-scale projects. pdfrw can handle common PDF operations effectively, such as extracting text, images, and annotations. However, for more advanced tasks like adding interactive elements or handling complex PDF structures, you may need to consider other libraries.
Here is an example to rotate a pdf file using pdfrw library
#Pip install pdfrw
import os
import pdfrw
def rotate_pdf_pages(input_pdf, output_pdf, rotation_angle=90):
"""Rotate all pages of a PDF by a specified angle using pdfrw."""
input_pdf_obj = pdfrw.PdfReader(input_pdf)
for page in input_pdf_obj.pages:
page.Rotate = (page.Rotate or 0) + rotation_angle
pdfrw.PdfWriter().write(output_pdf, input_pdf_obj)
# Example usage:
if __name__ == "__main__":
input_pdf = "file1.pdf"
output_pdf_rotate = "rotated.pdf"
output_pdf_merge = "merged.pdf"
# Rotate the PDF
rotate_pdf_pages(input_pdf, output_pdf_rotate, rotation_angle=90)
print("PDF pages rotated successfully.")V. Which is the Best Python Library for PDF Automation?
The answer to this question depends on your project requirements. Each of the mentioned libraries has its strengths and weaknesses. To help you decide, consider the following factors:
Task Complexity:
For basic operations like merging or splitting PDFs, PyPDF2 or pdfrw are sufficient. If your project involves text extraction and analysis, pdfminer is the best choice. For advanced PDF manipulation or rendering, consider PyMuPDF.
Performance:
For large-scale PDF processing, PyMuPDF is highly performant due to its low-level bindings with MuPDF. If performance is a critical factor, this library is the frontrunner.
Customization:
If your project involves generating customized and dynamic PDFs, ReportLab provides a wide array of features for creating professional-grade documents.