PoC .NET - Extract PDF content

🔬 Proof of Concept of extracting content from PDF files using multiple PDF libraries.

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Libraries

• DocNet
• iTextSharp.LGPLv2.Core
• PdfPig
• PdfSharpCore

Refer to this article: Reading a PDF in C# on .NET Core

The main goal of this POC is to test the available options we have now to read effectively content from PDF files and replace the current iTextSharp - for .NET Framework.

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Results

✅ ⚠️ DocNet

The results are not the best, but they look good. With the files tested, some errors were detected that could be avoided using some simple regexp when processing it later.

❌ iTextSharp.LGPLv2.Core

Issues with encoding. The simple PDF generated by the library itself can be read, but another PDF tested returns problems with encoding.

• SimpleTextExtractionStrategy ?
• Encoding problem with extracted text from GhostScript generated pdf

✅ 🔝 PdfPig

99.999% of the result of PdfPig was the same as the old iTextSharp class (not the itextSharp Core version). This will be used in my projects to replace the old one.

❌ PdfSharpCore

This library doesn’t support extract text yet.