pypdf

pypdf is a free and open-source pure-python PDF library capable of splitting,
merging,
cropping, and transforming
the pages of PDF files. It can also add
custom data, viewing options, and
passwords
to PDF files. pypdf can
retrieve text
and
metadata
from PDFs as well.

See pdfly for a CLI application that uses pypdf to interact with PDFs.

Installation

Install pypdf using pip:

pip install pypdf

For using pypdf with AES encryption or decryption, install extra dependencies:

pip install pypdf[crypto]

NOTE: pypdf 3.1.0 and above include significant improvements compared to
previous versions. Please refer to the migration
guide for
more information.

Usage

from pypdf import PdfReader

reader = PdfReader("example.pdf")
number_of_pages = len(reader.pages)
page = reader.pages[0]
text = page.extract_text()

pypdf can do a lot more, e.g. splitting, merging, reading and creating
annotations, decrypting and encrypting, and more. Check out the
documentation for additional usage
examples!

For questions and answers, visit
StackOverflow
(tagged with pypdf).

Contributions

Maintaining pypdf is a collaborative effort. You can support the project by
writing documentation, helping to narrow down issues, and submitting code.
See the CONTRIBUTING.md file for more information.

Q&A

The experience pypdf users have covers the whole range from beginners who
want to make their live easier to experts who developed software before PDF
existed. You can contribute to the pypdf community by answering questions
on StackOverflow,
helping in discussions,
and asking users who report issues for MCVE’s (Code + example PDF!).

Issues

A good bug ticket includes a MCVE - a minimal complete verifiable example.
For pypdf, this means that you must upload a PDF that causes the bug to occur
as well as the code you’re executing with all of the output. Use
print(pypdf.__version__) to tell us which version you’re using.

Code

All code contributions are welcome, but smaller ones have a better chance to
get included in a timely manner. Adding unit tests for new features or test
cases for bugs you’ve fixed help us to ensure that the Pull Request (PR) is fine.

pypdf includes a test suite which can be executed with pytest:

$ pytest
===================== test session starts =====================
platform linux -- Python 3.6.15, pytest-7.0.1, pluggy-1.0.0
rootdir: /home/moose/GitHub/Martin/pypdf
plugins: cov-3.0.0
collected 233 items

tests/test_basic_features.py ..                         [  0%]
tests/test_constants.py .                               [  1%]
tests/test_filters.py .................x.....           [ 11%]
tests/test_generic.py ................................. [ 25%]
.............                                           [ 30%]
tests/test_javascript.py ..                             [ 31%]
tests/test_merger.py .                                  [ 32%]
tests/test_page.py .........................            [ 42%]
tests/test_pagerange.py ................                [ 49%]
tests/test_papersizes.py ..................             [ 57%]
tests/test_reader.py .................................. [ 72%]
...............                                         [ 78%]
tests/test_utils.py ....................                [ 87%]
tests/test_workflows.py ..........                      [ 91%]
tests/test_writer.py .................                  [ 98%]
tests/test_xmp.py ...                                   [100%]

========== 232 passed, 1 xfailed, 1 warning in 4.52s ==========