How to Extract Text From PDF File Using C#.Net

In this article I will show you how you can read the PDF text using iTextSharp in your c# application. In this article I will retrieve the pdf data and display to console application.

So here are some of my article are as follows: How to Read a Text File Line by Line in C# in Console Application, Multiple File Upload With Asp.Net MVC C# and HTML5 | How to upload files to ASP.NET MVC application, Drag Drop Cells in GridView Control Using Asp.net C# and jQuery.

Now for this article first we will download the iTextSharp and now create a new console application and add the below code.

C#.Net

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.IO; using iTextSharp.text.pdf; using iTextSharp.text; using iTextSharp.text.pdf.parser; namespace DemoConsoleApplication {     class Program     {         /// <summary>         /// How to Extract Text From PDF File Using C#.Net         /// </summary>         /// <param name="args"></param>         static void Main(string[] args)         {             /*In this you needed to put your pdf in Bin\Debug folder.              * If you new put file in bin directory on that case you              * have to provide drive name*/             string pdfdata = ExtractTextFromPdf(@"report_grid.pdf");             Console.WriteLine(pdfdata);             System.Console.ReadLine();         }         public static string ExtractTextFromPdf(string path)         {             using (PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(path))             {                 StringBuilder text = new StringBuilder();                 for (int i = 1; i <= reader.NumberOfPages; i++)                 {                     text.Append(PdfTextExtractor.GetTextFromPage(reader, i));                 }                 return text.ToString();             }         }     } }

VB.Net

Imports System Imports System.Collections.Generic Imports System.Linq Imports System.Text Imports System.IO Imports iTextSharp.text.pdf Imports iTextSharp.text Imports iTextSharp.text.pdf.parser Namespace DemoConsoleApplication     Class Program         ''' <summary>         ''' How to Extract Text From PDF File Using C#.Net         ''' </summary>         ''' <param name="args"></param>         Private Shared Sub Main(ByVal args As String())             'In this you needed to put your pdf in Bin\Debug folder.             '             * If you new put file in bin directory on that case you             '             * have to provide drive name             Dim pdfdata As String = ExtractTextFromPdf("report_grid.pdf")             Console.WriteLine(pdfdata)             System.Console.ReadLine()         End Sub         Public Shared Function ExtractTextFromPdf(ByVal path As String) As String             Using reader As New PdfReader(path)                 Dim text As New StringBuilder()                 Dim i As Integer = 1                 While i <= reader.NumberOfPages                     text.Append(PdfTextExtractor.GetTextFromPage(reader, i))                     System.Math.Max(System.Threading.Interlocked.Increment(i), i - 1)                 End While                 Return text.ToString()             End Using         End Function     End Class End Namespace

In above code path of the pdf file is most important. In this we don’t needed to specify the path of the pdf file. For testing purpose we just needed to put the file in bin directory or you can also provide the physical path of the pdf file.

check the example

 string pdfdata = ExtractTextFromPdf(@"report_grid.pdf");

                   OR

 string pdfdata = ExtractTextFromPdf(@"D:\report_grid.pdf");

Here is the pdf file

Now run the application to check the output.

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