File parsed returns unreadable text

[edodije]

Thank you for the awesome Pdfparser library, it really helps me a lot with my projects, and use it quite often recently.. But I found a difficulty with my last project which was my pdf file was converted into some unreadable format text instead of plain text.. My friend told me I should do something with the encoding, but I'm not really sure.. So, I would really glad if anybody can give me some hint or idea if I missing something or it was indeed a bug from the library.. I've tried to parse it as a whole and by each pages btw, it was still not working..

Here is my code,

$PdfParser = new \Smalot\PdfParser\Parser();
$pdf = $PdfParser->parseFile($file);
$text -> getText();
echo $text;

And this is what it returns,

JHGSA IUYSHJG st GUH st GUH HUYGAH st JHGSA st st ttt t ss1 ss2 t 21666 !" #ssst #tt #t #ss1 #ss2 $# $ t%&t '(#tt 2$# t $$sst 2$ 2$'(#t 2$$sst t%&t ' # ttts !"#$ tt $$ss 2$$ss )tst t"+t t$ )tttst ,"1st$'(#t #s%( tt )t $t tst tss1 , )$ %' # ' # t$st HUYGAH IUYSHJG #$#$ %#$# % "t-." s )t$# )t$'(#t $s(%$" t%&t ttt 1st$%$ss tt tt%&t tt%&t ss/%$sst )$$sst )$'(#t %%'0t+#1 2sst t1 )tst )t$$ss tt%&t ttts )$# ,"t%&t ! "#$"#%!& !"#"#%!& !"#"#%!& ! ' ' ( )Y ! Z,-. JHGSA IUYSHJG GUH HUYGAH #sst t ss%tt# )ttt )t, )t )t($ '3st t % # ts%'1 )t*#t /%t$ss ttt%&t & tt(% & t-tts tt )tt 2$%$ss )tss2 )t' # t$st 2$tt%$ss 1st$$ss"tt t )t$$ss"tt t$%$ss t$$sst s$t%t )t%&t )$$ss )$%$ss )$tt%$ss $ t' ss ss/%t ' ss IUYSHJG& ' ss$ %%t1 tss4t tss5st tss5 tss5t tss51 tss52 ' # tst t' # ttts )t' st t$%" tt+t%" st%&t s&tt sss st sst st ! //$01$1% ) 2 (2) 2 () 31!#%%#% !"#"#%!& !"#"#%!& &$4$04%%%% ' ' ! &$4$04%%%% !"#$"#%!& !"#"#%!& !"#"#%!& ! ' ' ( )Y # Z,-.

[k00ni]

Can you upload the PDF here so we can use it to reproduce the error? It must be free to use, because we will use it in the test suite.

[taherbth]

Hello, I could parse pdf using Smalot\PdfParser and would like to say it's awesome work you have done. Only one problem I face is it's unable to show exact text when Language is : Bengali. Is there any option to get exact text when it's in Bengali Language?

[k00ni]

@taherbth how is that related to this issue? If it is not, please open a new issue and provide some more information, like example code/PDF, more info about your setup like PHP version-

[lgArlequin]

Hi @k00ni, I have the same problem with one of my pdfs, at first I thought it was a multipage issue, but if I extract only 1, it continues doing so.

My PHP version is 7.4.29. I attach an example (it is an extracted page since the original file has sensitive information).

The original, apparently, is generated with PDFlib ([Producer] => PDFlib+PDI 9.1.2p1 (C++ legacy/Win64)) but if I edit it with the Mac preview ([Producer] => macOS Version 13.6.1 (Build 22G313) Quartz PDFContext), works fine, but I have no way to manually edit the system originals. For the example, I used the Fpdi library ([Producer] => FPDF 1.86) which has the same parsing errors.

If you need any other information I can provide it. sample.pdf

[k00ni]

@lgArlequin Which PDFParser version do you use? Our latest version is 2.8.0-RC1: https://github.com/smalot/pdfparser/releases/tag/v2.8.0-RC1

[lgArlequin]

@k00ni Yes, I changed to that version just in case and I still have the problem. I'm not using composer, I install it manually, I don't know if that can change anything.