# PDF Text & Table Extractor (pdfplumber, batch URLs) (`gochujang/pdf-text-extractor`) Actor

Download any PDF by URL and extract clean per-page text + detected tables (as 2D arrays) + document metadata (title/author/created/modified). Powered by pdfplumber. Batch up to 50 PDFs. $0.01 per PDF + $0.0005 per page.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/gochujang/pdf-text-extractor.md
- **Developed by:** [Hojun Lee](https://apify.com/gochujang) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Automation, Other
- **Stats:** 28 total users, 25 monthly users, 56.8% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md):

```bash
npm install apify-client
```

In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md):

```bash
pip install apify-client
```

In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md):

````bash
# MacOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash
# Windows
irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex
```bash

In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md).

If your project is in a different language, use the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).


# README

## PDF Text & Table Extractor

> Download any PDF by URL and extract **clean per-page text + detected tables + document metadata**. Powered by pdfplumber. Batch up to 50 PDFs. **$0.01 per PDF + $0.0005 per page.**

---

### Why this exists

PDFs are how every important document gets distributed — SEC filings, research papers, financial reports, government records. But the raw bytes aren't searchable, can't be fed to LLMs, can't be ingested into databases.

This actor handles the conversion. You give it a URL list; it returns a structured per-page dataset including:
- Clean extracted text (preserving reading order)
- Detected tables as 2D arrays (ready for CSV / Sheets export)
- Document-level metadata (title, author, creation date)

---

### What you get

#### Summary row (one per PDF)
```json
{
  "_type": "summary",
  "url": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/.../aapl-10k.pdf",
  "ok": true,
  "page_count": 80,
  "title": "Apple Inc. — Annual Report 2024",
  "author": "Apple Inc.",
  "creator": "InDesign",
  "producer": "Adobe Distiller",
  "created": "D:20240928081300Z",
  "modified": "D:20240928081400Z"
}
````

#### Per-page row

```json
{
  "_type": "page",
  "url": "https://...",
  "page": 12,
  "char_count": 3210,
  "word_count": 524,
  "text": "Item 1A. Risk Factors\n\nOur business...",
  "tables": [
    [
      ["Revenue", "Q1 2024", "Q4 2023"],
      ["iPhone", "$45.96B", "$43.81B"],
      ["Mac", "$9.66B", "$7.61B"]
    ]
  ],
  "table_count": 1
}
```

***

### Input Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `urls` | array | — | List of PDF URLs to extract (batch mode) |
| `url` | string | — | Single PDF URL (used when `urls` is empty) |
| `outputFormat` | string | `per_page` | `per_page` (one record/page), `combined` (one record/PDF), or `both` |
| `extractTables` | boolean | `true` | Detect and extract tables as 2D arrays |
| `extractImages` | boolean | `false` | Add `image_count` field to each page |
| `startPage` | integer | 1 | First page to extract (1-indexed) |
| `endPage` | integer | — | Last page to extract (inclusive) |
| `maxPages` | integer | 500 | Max pages per PDF from `startPage` |
| `userAgent` | string | — | Custom User-Agent for the HTTP request |

***

### Quick start

#### Single PDF

```json
{
  "url": "https://www.example.com/whitepaper.pdf"
}
```

#### Batch of 10-K filings from SEC

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/aapl-10k.pdf",
    "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/msft-10k.pdf"
  ],
  "extractTables": true,
  "maxPages": 200
}
```

#### Text-only (skip tables for speed)

```json
{
  "url": "https://...",
  "extractTables": false
}
```

***

### Pricing

**Pay-Per-Event**:

- `$0.01` — flat per PDF (download + metadata)
- `$0.0005` — per page extracted

| Run | PDFs × Pages | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| One 80-page 10-K | 1 × 80 | $0.05 |
| Batch of 10 research papers | 10 × 20 | $0.20 |
| Quarterly: 50 earnings releases | 50 × 15 | $0.88 |

Vs Adobe Acrobat Pro DC ($23/mo) for manual extraction, or DocParser ($199/mo for API) — this is 5-10x cheaper at typical volumes.

***

### Use cases

1. **SEC filings** — Pull text + tables from 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K. Combine with our [SEC EDGAR Tracker](https://apify.com/gochujang/sec-edgar-tracker).
2. **Research aggregation** — Build a searchable database of academic papers + abstracts
3. **Financial reports** — Auto-extract earnings tables from quarterly releases
4. **LLM RAG** — Convert PDFs to chunks for vector search / Q\&A
5. **Compliance audit** — Index every PDF in your corporate document store

***

### Limitations

- **Scanned PDFs (image-only)** — Returns empty text. Use OCR for scanned PDFs.
- **Complex layouts** — Multi-column research papers may merge column text awkwardly. Tweak with custom extraction parameters in v0.2.
- **Encrypted PDFs** — Will fail with a clear error message.

***

### Data engine

- **pdfplumber** v0.11+ — Pure-Python, robust, used by countless data-engineering pipelines.
- **No OCR** in this actor. For OCR, combine with a separate actor that runs Tesseract or Vision API.

***

### Related actors (same author)

- [Web Page → Markdown Converter](https://apify.com/gochujang/web-to-markdown) — HTML version of the same idea
- [HTML Metadata Extractor](https://apify.com/gochujang/html-metadata-extractor)
- [SEC EDGAR Filing Tracker](https://apify.com/gochujang/sec-edgar-tracker) — Get the SEC filing URLs to feed in
- [JSON Schema Generator](https://apify.com/gochujang/json-schema-generator)

***

### Feedback

A short review helps researchers / analysts find it: [Leave a review on Apify Store](https://apify.com/gochujang/pdf-text-extractor#reviews)

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

List of PDF URLs to download and extract.

## `url` (type: `string`):

Used when 'urls' is empty.

## `outputFormat` (type: `string`):

per\_page: one record per page. combined: single record with full document text. both: emit both.

## `extractTables` (type: `boolean`):

Detect and extract tables per page (as 2D arrays). Disabled by default — enabling this on complex PDFs significantly increases processing time and memory usage.

## `extractImages` (type: `boolean`):

Add image\_count field to each page record.

## `startPage` (type: `integer`):

First page to extract (1-indexed). Default = 1.

## `endPage` (type: `integer`):

Last page to extract (inclusive). Leave empty to use maxPages.

## `maxPages` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many pages per PDF (from startPage). Ignored if endPage is set.

## `maxPdfMb` (type: `integer`):

Reject PDFs larger than this size in megabytes. Prevents out-of-memory failures on huge files.

## `userAgent` (type: `string`):

Custom UA string for the HTTP request.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf"
  ],
  "url": "",
  "outputFormat": "per_page",
  "extractTables": false,
  "extractImages": false,
  "startPage": 1,
  "maxPages": 100,
  "maxPdfMb": 50,
  "userAgent": ""
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `dataset` (type: `string`):

No description

## `summary` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "urls": [
        "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("gochujang/pdf-text-extractor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "urls": ["https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("gochujang/pdf-text-extractor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf"
  ]
}' |
apify call gochujang/pdf-text-extractor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=gochujang/pdf-text-extractor",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

```json
{
    "openapi": "3.0.1",
    "info": {
        "title": "PDF Text & Table Extractor (pdfplumber, batch URLs)",
        "description": "Download any PDF by URL and extract clean per-page text + detected tables (as 2D arrays) + document metadata (title/author/created/modified). Powered by pdfplumber. Batch up to 50 PDFs. $0.01 per PDF + $0.0005 per page.",
        "version": "0.1",
        "x-build-id": "qg7sTmgTJAsThDaf3"
    },
    "servers": [
        {
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2"
        }
    ],
    "paths": {
        "/acts/gochujang~pdf-text-extractor/run-sync-get-dataset-items": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-gochujang-pdf-text-extractor",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/gochujang~pdf-text-extractor/runs": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "runs-sync-gochujang-pdf-text-extractor",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK",
                        "content": {
                            "application/json": {
                                "schema": {
                                    "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/gochujang~pdf-text-extractor/run-sync": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-gochujang-pdf-text-extractor",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "components": {
        "schemas": {
            "inputSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "properties": {
                    "urls": {
                        "title": "PDF URLs",
                        "type": "array",
                        "description": "List of PDF URLs to download and extract.",
                        "default": [],
                        "items": {
                            "type": "string"
                        }
                    },
                    "url": {
                        "title": "Single PDF URL (shortcut)",
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "Used when 'urls' is empty.",
                        "default": ""
                    },
                    "outputFormat": {
                        "title": "Output format",
                        "enum": [
                            "per_page",
                            "combined",
                            "both"
                        ],
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "per_page: one record per page. combined: single record with full document text. both: emit both.",
                        "default": "per_page"
                    },
                    "extractTables": {
                        "title": "Extract tables",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Detect and extract tables per page (as 2D arrays). Disabled by default — enabling this on complex PDFs significantly increases processing time and memory usage.",
                        "default": false
                    },
                    "extractImages": {
                        "title": "Count images per page",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Add image_count field to each page record.",
                        "default": false
                    },
                    "startPage": {
                        "title": "Start page",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "First page to extract (1-indexed). Default = 1.",
                        "default": 1
                    },
                    "endPage": {
                        "title": "End page",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Last page to extract (inclusive). Leave empty to use maxPages."
                    },
                    "maxPages": {
                        "title": "Max pages per PDF",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 1000,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Stop after this many pages per PDF (from startPage). Ignored if endPage is set.",
                        "default": 100
                    },
                    "maxPdfMb": {
                        "title": "Max PDF size (MB)",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 500,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Reject PDFs larger than this size in megabytes. Prevents out-of-memory failures on huge files.",
                        "default": 50
                    },
                    "userAgent": {
                        "title": "User-Agent",
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "Custom UA string for the HTTP request.",
                        "default": ""
                    }
                }
            },
            "runsResponseSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "properties": {
                    "data": {
                        "type": "object",
                        "properties": {
                            "id": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "actId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "userId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "startedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "finishedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "status": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "READY"
                            },
                            "meta": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "origin": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "API"
                                    },
                                    "userAgent": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "stats": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "inputBodyLen": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2000
                                    },
                                    "rebootCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "restartCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "resurrectCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "computeUnits": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "options": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "build": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "latest"
                                    },
                                    "timeoutSecs": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 300
                                    },
                                    "memoryMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1024
                                    },
                                    "diskMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2048
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "buildId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultKeyValueStoreId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultDatasetId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultRequestQueueId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "buildNumber": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "1.0.0"
                            },
                            "containerUrl": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "usage": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "usageTotalUsd": {
                                "type": "number",
                                "example": 0.00005
                            },
                            "usageUsd": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "number",
                                        "example": 0.00005
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
```