PDF to Text in Node.js

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

npm install pdfcrowd

Quick Start

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

var pdfcrowd = require("pdfcrowd");

// create the API client instance
var client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient("demo", "ce544b6ea52a5621fb9d55f8b542d14d");

// run the conversion and write the result to a file
client.convertFileToFile(
    "/path/to/invoice.pdf",
    "invoice.txt",
    function(err, fileName) {
        if (err) return console.error("Pdfcrowd Error: " + err);
        console.log("Success: the file was created " + fileName);
    });

var pdfcrowd = require("pdfcrowd");

// create the API client instance
var 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",
    function(err, fileName) {
        if (err) return console.error("Pdfcrowd Error: " + err);
        console.log("Success: the file was created " + fileName);
    });

var pdfcrowd = require("pdfcrowd");
var fs = require("fs");

// create the API client instance
var client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient("demo", "ce544b6ea52a5621fb9d55f8b542d14d");

// run the conversion and write the result to a file
client.convertRawDataToFile(
    fs.readFileSync("/path/to/hello_world.pdf"),
    "invoice.txt",
    function(err, fileName) {
        if (err) return console.error("Pdfcrowd Error: " + err);
        console.log("Success: the file was created " + fileName);
    });

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(why) {
    // print the error
    console.error("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);

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

    // print the error message
    console.error("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 Node.js Reference for a description of all API methods.