How to extract Highlighted Parts from PDF files

pdf information-retrieval
user1183057 picture user1183057 · Feb 1, 2012 · Viewed 12.4k times · Source

Is there any way to extract highlighted text from a PDF file programmatically? Any language is welcome. I have found several libraries with Python, Java, and also PHP but none of them do the job.

Answer

Angel picture Angel · Apr 14, 2012

Ok, after looking I found a solution for exporting highlighted text from a pdf to a text file. Is not very hard:

  1. First, you highlight your text with the tool you like to use (in my case, I highlight while I'm reading on an iPad using Goodreader app).

  2. Transfer your pdf to a computer and open it using Skim (a pdf reader, free and easy to find on the web)

  3. On FILE, choose CONVERT NOTES and convert all the notes of your document to SKIM NOTES.

  4. That's all: simply go to EXPORT an choose EXPORT SKIM NOTES. It will export you a list of your highlighted text. Once opened this list can be exported again to a txt format file.

Not much work to do, and the result is fantastic.

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