pdfplumber is an open-source Python library designed to extract detailed information from PDF documents, including text, tables, characters, lines, rectangles, and other graphical objects. Built on pdfminer.six, it provides precise access to the position, dimensions, and properties of individual page elements. Users can extract text while preserving layout information and identify tables through configurable detection strategies. The library supports page cropping, object filtering, and visual debugging tools that display detected elements and table boundaries. It also provides access to PDF metadata and password-protected documents. A command-line interface exports page objects into structured CSV or JSON data. pdfplumber works best with digitally generated PDFs and is useful for document analysis, data extraction, and automated processing workflows.
Features
- Precise PDF Text and Character Extraction
- Automatic Table Detection and Extraction
- Page Layout and Object Coordinate Analysis
- Visual Debugging and Table Boundary Inspection
- Page Cropping and Object Filtering
- Command-Line CSV and JSON Export