PDF to Text in PHP

Overview

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

Installation

Install the PHP client with Composer, or see other installation options.

composer require pdfcrowd/pdfcrowd

Quick Start

Update the input URLs and filenames as needed.

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$client = new \Pdfcrowd\PdfToTextClient('demo', 'demo');

$client->convertUrlToFile('https://your-server.com/invoice.pdf', 'invoice.txt');

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$client = new \Pdfcrowd\PdfToTextClient('demo', 'demo');

$client->convertFileToFile('invoice.pdf', 'invoice.txt');

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 PHP 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.

PHP strings can hold binary data. This example extracts text from a PDF, receives the result as a string and saves it as invoice.txt:

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$client = new \Pdfcrowd\PdfToTextClient('demo', 'demo');

$result = $client->convertUrl('https://your-server.com/invoice.pdf');
if (file_put_contents('invoice.txt', $result) !== strlen($result)) {
    throw new \RuntimeException('Cannot save the conversion result');
}

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

Handle Errors

The client throws a Pdfcrowd\Error exception on conversion or validation errors. This example extracts text from a PDF and logs any PDFCrowd error, including its HTTP status and reason code:

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$client = new \Pdfcrowd\PdfToTextClient('demo', 'demo');

try {
    $client->convertUrlToFile(
        'https://your-server.com/invoice.pdf', 'invoice.txt'
    );
} catch (\Pdfcrowd\Error $error) {
    error_log('PDFCrowd: ' . $error);
    error_log(sprintf('Status: %s; reason: %s',
        $error->getStatusCode(), $error->getReasonCode()));
    throw $error;
}

Local PHP errors, such as a failure to read an input file or write the output, may need separate handling.

Pdfcrowd\Error provides these methods:

(string) $error 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.

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 PHP 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 records the debug log URL when available. Use the input and settings from the conversion you are investigating.

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$client = new \Pdfcrowd\PdfToTextClient('demo', 'demo');

try {
    $client->setDebugLog(true);
    $client->convertUrlToFile(
        'https://your-server.com/invoice.pdf', 'invoice.txt'
    );
} catch (\Pdfcrowd\Error $error) {
    error_log('PDFCrowd: ' . $error);
    error_log(sprintf('Status: %s; reason: %s',
        $error->getStatusCode(), $error->getReasonCode()));
    throw $error;
} finally {
    if ($client->getDebugLogUrl()) {
        error_log('Debug log: ' . $client->getDebugLogUrl());
    }
}

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.