Xpdf tools — pre-compiled binaries + PHP wrappers

Pre-compiled Xpdf command-line tools with fluent PHP wrapper classes. Includes pdftotext, pdfinfo, pdftopng, pdfimages, and more.

Xpdf version: 4.06

Maintained by Restruct. If this package saves you time, you can support ongoing maintenance.

Requirements

• PHP 8.1 or higher and symfony/process ^6 or ^7 (composer.json is the source of truth).
• Bundled binaries are x86_64 only: Linux x86_64, and macOS x86_64 or Apple Silicon via Rosetta 2. On other platforms (e.g. Linux ARM64) install xpdf yourself and point XPDF_BIN_DIR at it.

Installation

composer require restruct/xpdf-static

Quick examples

use Restruct\Xpdf\PdfToText;
use Restruct\Xpdf\PdfInfo;
use Restruct\Xpdf\PdfToPng;
use Restruct\Xpdf\PdfImages;

// Extract text (UTF-8, layout preserved)
$text = PdfToText::extract('/path/to/file.pdf');

// Page count
$pages = PdfInfo::pageCount('/path/to/file.pdf');

// Full document info
$info = PdfInfo::create('/path/to/file.pdf');
echo $info->getTitle();
echo $info->getPageCount();
$dims = $info->getPageDimensions();
echo $dims->standard; // 'A4'

// Render pages to PNG
$pngs = PdfToPng::render('/path/to/file.pdf', '/tmp/output', dpi: 240);

// Extract images
$images = PdfImages::extractAll('/path/to/file.pdf', '/tmp/img');

// List images without extracting
$listing = PdfImages::list('/path/to/file.pdf');

Wrapper classes

Restruct\Xpdf\Xpdf — binary resolution + generic runner

use Restruct\Xpdf\Xpdf;

// Check availability
Xpdf::isAvailable();
Xpdf::availableTools(); // ['pdftotext', 'pdfinfo', ...]

// Run any tool directly
$result = Xpdf::run('pdftotext', ['-layout', '-enc', 'UTF-8', 'input.pdf', '-']);
echo $result->output;
echo $result->isSuccessful();

Restruct\Xpdf\PdfToText — text extraction

use Restruct\Xpdf\PdfToText;

// Quick extraction
$text = PdfToText::extract('input.pdf');

// Fluent API with full control
$text = PdfToText::create('input.pdf')
    ->encoding('UTF-8')
    ->layout()
    ->pages(1, 5)
    ->noPageBreak()
    ->noDiag()        // skip watermarks
    ->getText();

// Table mode for tabular data
$text = PdfToText::create('input.pdf')
    ->table()
    ->encoding('UTF-8')
    ->getText();

// Save to file
PdfToText::create('input.pdf')
    ->encoding('UTF-8')
    ->toFile('output.txt');

Restruct\Xpdf\PdfInfo — document metadata

Replaces howtomakeaturn/pdfinfo with improved page dimension detection.

use Restruct\Xpdf\PdfInfo;

$info = PdfInfo::create('input.pdf');

// Basic metadata
$info->getTitle();
$info->getAuthor();
$info->getPageCount();
$info->getPdfVersion();
$info->getCreationDate();

// Page dimensions with paper size detection
$dims = $info->getPageDimensions();
$dims->width;       // 595 (points)
$dims->height;      // 842 (points)
$dims->standard;    // 'A4'
$dims->orientation; // 'portrait'
$dims->rotation;    // 0
$dims->nearestDIN;  // 'A4' or 'A3'

// All fields as array
$all = $info->getAll();

If pdfinfo fails (damaged, unreadable or user-password-protected file, timeout), every parsed getter throws a RuntimeException with the exit code and pdfinfo's error output, instead of returning 0 pages (from 1.0.2). A failed run is not cached, so each getter call runs pdfinfo again. run() still returns the raw XpdfResult without throwing. (A PDF with only an owner password opens fine and does not throw.)

Empty fields (e.g. a document without a title) return null. When pdfinfo prints a label twice, the first value wins.

standard is pdfinfo's own label when it prints one (it labels A0 to A6 and letter), otherwise the nearest entry in the built-in table of ISO A/B/C, ANSI and a few other sizes, within 2 points in either orientation. null means no standard size matched.

Restruct\Xpdf\PdfToPng — page rendering

use Restruct\Xpdf\PdfToPng;

// Render all pages
$files = PdfToPng::render('input.pdf', '/tmp/page', dpi: 240);
// ['/tmp/page-000001.png', '/tmp/page-000002.png', ...]

// Render single page
$file = PdfToPng::renderPage('input.pdf', 1, '/tmp/thumb', dpi: 72);

// Full control
$files = PdfToPng::create('input.pdf')
    ->resolution(300)
    ->pages(1, 10)
    ->gray()
    ->convert('/tmp/output');

Restruct\Xpdf\PdfImages — image extraction

use Restruct\Xpdf\PdfImages;

// Extract all images (JPEG where possible)
$files = PdfImages::extractAll('input.pdf', '/tmp/img');

// Extract unique images only
$files = PdfImages::extractUnique('input.pdf', '/tmp/img');

// List images without extracting
$list = PdfImages::list('input.pdf');
foreach ($list as $img) {
    echo "{$img['page']}: {$img['width']}x{$img['height']} {$img['color']} {$img['enc']}\n";
}

// Full control
$files = PdfImages::create('input.pdf')
    ->pages(1, 5)
    ->jpeg()
    ->unique()
    ->extract('/tmp/img');

Binary resolution

The bootstrap auto-detects the platform and sets XPDF_BIN_DIR:

1. XPDF_BIN_DIR constant (if already defined)
2. XPDF_BIN_DIR environment variable
3. macOS: bundled x64/mac/ binaries
4. Linux: bundled x64/linux/ binaries

Available binaries

All 9 xpdf tools are bundled: pdftotext, pdfinfo, pdffonts, pdfimages, pdftohtml, pdftopng, pdftoppm, pdftops, pdfdetach.

Running the tests

composer install
vendor/bin/phpunit

Tests that run the real pdfinfo are skipped when it is not available.

License

• Wrapper code (bootstrap.php, src/): MIT (Copyright Restruct web & apps).
• Bundled xpdf binaries (x64/): unmodified xpdf-tools 4.06, Copyright Glyph & Cog, LLC, licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 or 3. They are not covered by the MIT licence. The upstream README, man pages and GPL texts that must accompany them are in xpdf-doc/; source is available from https://www.xpdfreader.com/download.html.

See LICENSE for the full terms.