PDF to Text in Java

This page describes how to use the Pdfcrowd online API to convert PDF to text in Java. The API is user-friendly and can be integrated into your application with just a few lines of code.

Installation

Download pdfcrowd-5.17.0-java.zip, unzip it and copy pdfcrowd-5.17.0.jar to your CLASSPATH.

Check out other installation options such as Maven or GitHub.

Quick Start

Here are Java examples for quickly getting started with the API. See more examples.

import com.pdfcrowd.*;
import java.io.*;

public class ApiTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, Pdfcrowd.Error {
        try {
            // create the API client instance
            Pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient client =
                new Pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient("demo", "ce544b6ea52a5621fb9d55f8b542d14d");

            // run the conversion and write the result to a file
            client.convertFileToFile("/path/to/invoice.pdf", "invoice.txt");
        }
        catch(Pdfcrowd.Error why) {
            System.err.println("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);
            throw why;
        }
        catch(IOException why) {
            System.err.println("IO Error: " + why);
            throw why;
        }
    }
}

import com.pdfcrowd.*;
import java.io.*;

public class ApiTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, Pdfcrowd.Error {
        try {
            // create the API client instance
            Pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient client =
                new Pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient("demo", "ce544b6ea52a5621fb9d55f8b542d14d");

            // run the conversion and write the result to a file
            client.convertUrlToFile("https://pdfcrowd.com/static/pdf/apisamples/invoice.pdf", "invoice.txt");
        }
        catch(Pdfcrowd.Error why) {
            System.err.println("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);
            throw why;
        }
        catch(IOException why) {
            System.err.println("IO Error: " + why);
            throw why;
        }
    }
}

import com.pdfcrowd.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class ApiTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, Pdfcrowd.Error {
        try {
            // create the API client instance
            Pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient client =
                new Pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient("demo", "ce544b6ea52a5621fb9d55f8b542d14d");

            // run the conversion and write the result to a file
            client.convertRawDataToFile(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get("/path/to/hello_world.pdf")), "invoice.txt");
        }
        catch(Pdfcrowd.Error why) {
            System.err.println("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);
            throw why;
        }
        catch(IOException why) {
            System.err.println("IO Error: " + why);
            throw why;
        }
    }
}

Authentication

The credentials to access the API are your Pdfcrowd username and the API key. You can try out the API without registering using the following demo credentials:

Username: demo
API key: ce544b6ea52a5621fb9d55f8b542d14d

To get your personal API credentials, you can start a free API trial or buy the API license.

Error Handling

It is recommended that you implement error handling to catch errors that the API may return, see the example code below. A list of status codes and their description can be found here.

try {
    // call the API 
}
catch(Pdfcrowd.Error why) {
    // print the error
    System.err.println("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);

    // print the error code
    System.err.println("Pdfcrowd Error Code: " + why.getCode());

    // print the error message
    System.err.println("Pdfcrowd Error Message: " + why.getMessage());
}

Troubleshooting

Refer to the API Status Codes page if the API returns an error.
You can use setDebugLog and getDebugLogUrl to get detailed info about the conversion, such as load errors, load times, browser console output, etc.
Check the FAQ.
Contact us if you need help or are missing a feature.

API Method Reference

Refer to the PDF to Text Java Reference for a description of all API methods.