PDF to Text in Node.js

Overview

Extract text from PDF documents with the PDFCrowd Node.js client. The client handles communication with the API, while conversions run on PDFCrowd's servers.

Installation

Install the Node.js client with npm, or see other installation options.

npm install pdfcrowd

Quick Start

You can run the examples below with the displayed API credentials. Update the input URLs and filenames as needed.

const pdfcrowd = require('pdfcrowd');

const client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient("demo", "demo");

client.convertUrlToFile(
    "https://your-server.com/invoice.pdf", "invoice.txt",
    (error, filePath) => {
        if (error) {
            console.error(error.toString());
            return;
        }
        console.log("Saved:", filePath);
    }
);

const pdfcrowd = require('pdfcrowd');

const client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient("demo", "demo");

client.convertFileToFile("invoice.pdf", "invoice.txt", (error, filePath) => {
    if (error) {
        console.error(error.toString());
        return;
    }
    console.log("Saved:", filePath);
});

Configure a Conversion

Authentication

Pass your PDFCrowd username and API key to PdfToTextClient. Find your credentials on the API Keys page.

Choose an Input

Send a PDF URL, upload a local file, or pass PDF bytes or a readable binary stream.

Add Conversion Settings

Set conversion options on the client before calling a conversion method. For example, client.setNoLayout(true); extracts text without preserving the PDF layout.

Common settings are listed below. See the method reference for all available options or browse Node.js examples.

By default, extraction preserves the PDF's layout with spacing. Enable setNoLayout() to extract text without preserving columns and positioning.

The PDF password unlocks the input document; it is separate from your PDFCrowd API key.

Handle the Result

Choose an Output

The result is UTF-8 plain text. A PDF must contain a text layer for extraction; recognizing text in a scanned document requires a separate OCR step.

The methods below use URL input; local files, bytes, and input streams have corresponding methods.

For stream output, pass a callbacks object with these functions:

If you pipe the response to a file, writing may still be in progress when end runs. Use the pipeline callback, after checking for errors, for code that uses the saved file.

This example extracts text from a PDF, collects the result in a Buffer, decodes it as UTF-8, and saves it locally as invoice.txt:

const fs = require("node:fs");
const pdfcrowd = require("pdfcrowd");

const client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient("demo", "demo");

const chunks = [];
client.convertUrl("https://your-server.com/invoice.pdf", {
    data: (stream) => stream.on("data", (chunk) => chunks.push(chunk)),
    error: (message, statusCode) => {
        console.error(new pdfcrowd.Pdfcrowd.Error(message, statusCode).toString());
    },
    end: () => {
        const text = Buffer.concat(chunks).toString("utf8");
        fs.writeFileSync("invoice.txt", text);
    }
});

When serving the result from a web application, use Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8.

Handle Errors

File-output methods pass a pdfcrowd.Pdfcrowd.Error to their callback on failure and null on success. Validation can also throw an exception. This example extracts text from a PDF and handles both paths, logging the HTTP status and reason code when available:

const pdfcrowd = require("pdfcrowd");

const client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient("demo", "demo");

function handleError(error) {
    if (error instanceof pdfcrowd.Pdfcrowd.Error) {
        console.error("PDFCrowd error:", error.getStatusCode(),
            error.getReasonCode(), error.getMessage());
    } else {
        console.error(error);
    }
}

try {
    client.convertUrlToFile(
        "https://your-server.com/invoice.pdf", "invoice.txt",
        (error) => {
            if (error) {
                handleError(error);
                return;
            }
        }
    );
} catch (error) {
    handleError(error);
}

Stream-output methods call error(message, statusCode) on failure. Local file and stream errors may need separate handling.

pdfcrowd.Pdfcrowd.Error provides these methods:

error.toString() returns the complete error, including available status and reason codes.

Common Status Codes

See all status and reason codes for specific explanations and Limits and Retries for retry behavior.

Read Conversion Information

This information is available after a conversion and describes the client's last conversion. Read it in the completion or error callback.

Limits and Retries

Request rate and concurrency limits depend on your license. Control how quickly your application submits conversions and how many it runs at once. A 429 response concerns request rate; a 430 response concerns requests already in progress. The maximum upload size is 300 MB.

The Node.js client automatically retries a request once when it receives HTTP 502 or 503. Use setRetryCount() to change that count, or set it to 0 to disable automatic retries. Account for these retries when adding an application-level retry policy.

Troubleshooting

Inspect a Conversion

This example extracts text from a PDF with debug logging enabled and logs the debug log URL when available. Use the input and settings from the conversion you are investigating.

const pdfcrowd = require("pdfcrowd");

const client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToTextClient("demo", "demo");

function finish(error) {
    if (error) {
        console.error(error.toString());
    }
    const debugLogUrl = client.getDebugLogUrl();
    if (debugLogUrl) console.info("Debug log:", debugLogUrl);
}

try {
    client.setDebugLog(true);
    client.convertUrlToFile(
        "https://your-server.com/invoice.pdf", "invoice.txt", finish
    );
} catch (error) {
    finish(error);
}

The debug log contains conversion settings and processing details. You can also find logs in your conversion history. A local or connection failure may occur before a conversion log is available.

Common Problems

For help, contact support and include any available diagnostics, the client version, and enough detail to reproduce the problem.