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PyMuPDF vs PDFMiner

 As a developer, I was tasked to extract specific data from a PDF. Upon analysing it further, certain patterns were found based on keywords in the document. Since I was using Python language for the task I found 2 tools quite useful which are PyMuPDF and PDFMiner.

These tools can then be used to extract the text from a page on which regular expression can be applied to further extract relevant data.

 

 

Next, we are going to take a deeper look into these tools, specifically focusing on the pros and cons of each.

 

 

PyMuPDF 

Docs, PIP package

Pros

  1. Simple and understandable API
  2. Extensive tools to work with text, images, and graphics
  3. Available as a PIP package (pip install PyMuPDF)
  4. Better support for a range of symbols comparer to PyPDF2

 

Cons

  1. Parsed text is not in sequence
  2. Dependency on other package-Fitz
  3. Text sequence information lost during extraction

 

 

PDFMiner 

Docs, PIP package

Pros

  1. Detailed documentation explaining the API's
  2. Old library with good community support
  3. Better text extraction result compared to PyMuPDF
  4. Most of the time maintains text sequence information
  5. Extended functionality to work with specific components like Diagrams, Textboxes, and Symbols, etc.
  6. Good for use cases requiring specific handling of various components

 

Cons

  1. Steep learning curve at the start
  2. Quite complex for a simple task
  3. Slow in extracting data from large PDF

 

Personal opinion

In my personal opinion, first I started with PyMuPDF as it was easy to use the tool when compared to PDFMiner. But then when I was extracting the text, I hit a roadblock since the sequence of the information was not maintained.

Further, I had to switch to PDFMiner which gave me better results when compared to PyMuPDF. Even though it was difficult to get started with PDFMiner, eventually the coding got easy and also the end result was good.

 

Last thoughts

Lastly, my advice would be to always evaluate the tools according to your use case and then only invest time in learning how to use it. Otherwise, you would have spent time in the wrong place and moreover, you have to do the rework too.

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Location: Toronto, ON, Canada

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