Extract text from PDFs in ASP.NET Core PDF Viewer

28 Feb 20264 minutes to read

Retrieve text content from one or more pages using the extractText method. The viewer supports both plain text extraction and detailed text extraction with positional bounds information. You can extract text on the server side or client side depending on your use case.

NOTE

From the Volume 2 2019 release, the PDF Viewer depends on the Syncfusion.Pdf.Net.Core and Syncfusion.Compression.Net.Core NuGet packages. Ensure these dependencies are properly referenced in your project.

Extract text on the server side

Use the server-side ExtractText() method to retrieve text with bounds information for processing outside the viewer.

// Uses the Syncfusion.EJ2.PdfViewer assembly
PdfRenderer pdfExtractText = new PdfRenderer();
pdfExtractText.Load(@"currentDirectory\..\..\..\..\Data\HTTP Succinctly.pdf");
//Returns the bounds of the text
List<Syncfusion.EJ2.PdfViewer.TextData> textCollection = new List<Syncfusion.EJ2.PdfViewer.TextData>();
// Extract text from the first page along with its bounds
string text = pdfExtractText.ExtractText(0, out textCollection);
// Save the extracted text to a file
System.IO.File.WriteAllText(@"currentDirectory\..\..\..\..\Data\data.txt", text);

NOTE

Ensure all required dependency packages (Syncfusion.Pdf.Net.Core and Syncfusion.Compression.Net.Core) are properly referenced in the project. Update the document path and output locations according to the application configuration.

Sample: Download ExtractText sample

Extract text in standalone mode

The extractText() method in the PDF Viewer retrieves text from a single page or multiple pages. Use optional parameters to specify the extraction format: plain text only or text with positional bounds.

Method parameters

• startIndex: The starting page index (0-based).

• endIndex or isOptions: Either the ending page index for multi-page extraction or an option for single-page extraction.

• options (optional): Additional settings such as 'TextOnly' or 'TextAndBounds'.

• TextOnly: Extracts only the plain text content without bounds or additional information.

• TextAndBounds: Extracts text content along with its bounds (coordinates) within the PDF.

Return value

Returns a Promise that resolves with an object containing:

• textData: An array of TextDataSettingsModel objects with detailed text information, including bounding box coordinates.
• pageText: A concatenated string containing all extracted text from the specified page range.

Usage example

Standalone

@page "{handler?}"
@model IndexModel
@{
    ViewData["Title"] = "Home page";
}

<div class="text-center">
    <button onclick="ExtractText()">Extract Text</button>
    <button onclick="ExtractTexts()">Extract Texts</button>
    <ejs-pdfviewer id="pdfviewer" style="height:600px" resourceUrl="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/29.1.33/dist/ej2-pdfviewer-lib" documentPath="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/content/pdf/pdf-succinctly.pdf">
    </ejs-pdfviewer>
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">
    function ExtractText(){
        var viewer = document.getElementById('pdfviewer').ej2_instances[0];
        viewer.extractText(1, 'TextOnly').then((val) => {
            console.log('Extracted Text from Page 1:');
            console.log(val);  // Logs the extracted text from page 1
        });
    }
     function ExtractTexts(){
         var viewer = document.getElementById('pdfviewer').ej2_instances[0];
        viewer.extractText(0, 2, 'TextOnly').then((val) => {
            console.log('Extracted Text from Pages 0 to 2:');
            console.log(val);  // Logs the extracted text from pages 0 to 2
        });
    }
</script>

Example explanation

The code examples above demonstrate:

• Single-page extraction: Retrieves text from page 1 using startIndex = 1 with the 'TextOnly' option, returning plain text without positional data.
• Multi-page extraction: Retrieves text from pages 0 through 2 using startIndex = 0 and endIndex = 2 with the 'TextOnly' option.

Use extractText in ASP.NET Core