PDF Extractor - Text, Tables, Metadata & Links

Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the owners of any website, service or document it processes. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Any site or brand names are referenced only to describe the content this Actor processes.

Turn a list of PDF links into clean, structured data. For each PDF you get the full text, the text per page, document metadata (title, author, dates, producer), every hyperlink, the outline (bookmarks), and - optionally - tables reconstructed into rows and columns.

Pure pdfjs: no browser, no third-party OCR service, no anti-bot target. Runs in seconds and costs a fraction of a cent per document.

What you get per PDF

Field	Description
text	Full document text, with line and column layout preserved (tables stay readable, not word-soup)
pages[]	Each page's text separately (optional)
pageCount wordCount charCount sizeBytes	Size and length metrics
title author subject keywords creator producer pdfVersion isEncrypted creationDate modificationDate	Document metadata
links[] linkCount	Every http(s) link - from link annotations and from the text
outline[]	Bookmarks / table-of-contents entries, when present
tables[]	Best-effort row/column grids per page (opt-in via Extract tables)
status error	ok, or failed with the reason (bad link, not a PDF, too large)

Input

{
  "pdfUrls": [
    "https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762",
    "https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tests/xhtml/testfiles/resources/pdf/dummy.pdf"
  ],
  "extractTables": true,
  "includePageText": true
}

• PDF URLs - direct links to .pdf files, one per line. Leave empty for a small free sample.
• Import PDF URLs from a file - paste a whole list, or link a public .txt/.csv, a Google Sheet/Drive share link, or an Apify key-value-store record. Every common messy-file quirk (blank lines, # comments, quotes, extra CSV columns) parses.
• Output fields - tick only the fields you want for a lean export.
• Max pages / Max PDF size - cost controls for very large documents.

Notes on accuracy

• Text extraction reads the PDF's own text layer, so it is exact for digitally-created PDFs. Scanned image-only PDFs have no text layer and will return little or no text (this actor does not run OCR).
• Table detection is best-effort: PDFs carry no standard table markup, so tables are reconstructed from text position. Ruled and well-aligned tables come out cleanly; free-form layouts may not.

How much does it cost?

This Actor uses Apify's pay-per-event pricing: you are charged only for the results it delivers, with no monthly rental and no start fee. The events it can charge are:

• PDF extracted - One PDF downloaded and parsed: full text, per-page text, metadata, links, outline and best-effort tables. Only successful extractions are charged.

The current price of each event is shown on the Pricing tab of this page. Set a maximum total charge on the run if you want a hard cap on spend, and use the input limits to control how much the Actor fetches.

Use with AI assistants (MCP)

This actor is available through the Apify MCP server, so an AI assistant or agent can call it as a tool - hand it PDF links and get back structured text, metadata and tables it can reason over (summarise a report, pull figures from a filing, index a document set).

Agent-ready: autonomous payments (x402 & Skyfire)

This actor is agent-ready - AI agents can discover it, run it, and pay for it autonomously, with no Apify account and no human in the loop. It uses pay-per-event pricing and limited permissions, so it qualifies for Apify's agentic-payment standards:

• x402 - an open, HTTP-native payment protocol. Agents pay per run in USDC on the Base network directly through the Apify MCP server - no account, no API key.
• Skyfire - agent-to-service payments for fully autonomous AI-agent workflows.

Building an AI agent, MCP tool, or autonomous data pipeline? This scraper is ready to plug in and pay as it goes.

Automate & schedule

Run this Actor on autopilot and pull results into your own stack:

• Apify API - start runs, fetch datasets and manage schedules over REST.
• apify-client for JavaScript and apify-client for Python - official SDKs.
• Schedules - run it hourly, daily or weekly and keep your dataset current.
• Webhooks - trigger downstream actions (CRM import, Slack alert, email sequence) the moment a run finishes.

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'MY_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('scrapesage/pdf-extractor').call({
    "pdfUrls": [
        "https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762",
        "https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tests/xhtml/testfiles/resources/pdf/dummy.pdf"
    ],
    "extractTables": true
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Got ${items.length} records`);

Integrate with any app

Connect the dataset to thousands of apps - no code required:

• Make - multi-step automation scenarios.
• Zapier - push new records straight into your CRM or spreadsheet.
• Slack - get notified when a scheduled run finds something new.
• Google Drive / Sheets - auto-export every run to a spreadsheet.
• Airbyte - pipe results into your data warehouse.
• GitHub - trigger runs from commits or releases.

FAQ

How is this Actor billed? Pay-per-event: you pay only for the results it delivers, with no monthly rental and no start fee. The per-event price is shown on the Pricing tab.

Can I schedule it and get results automatically? Yes - create a Schedule and add a webhook or an integration (Google Sheets, Slack, Make, Zapier) to push each run's dataset wherever you need it.

Which export formats are available? Every run's dataset can be downloaded as JSON, CSV, Excel (XLSX), XML, HTML or RSS from the Apify Console or the API.

Can I run it from code or an AI agent? Yes - through the Apify API and client libraries, or from Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants via the Apify MCP server.

Is it legal to use this Actor? This Actor collects publicly available data only. You are responsible for using the output in compliance with applicable laws (including data-protection law where personal data is involved) and the source's terms. See the Disclaimer below.

Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the owners of any website, service or document it processes. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

Any website, service or brand names that appear in this listing or in the output are referenced only in a descriptive, nominative sense. This Actor is not an official product of any of them and is not authorised or certified by them. It processes only content you point it at; you are responsible for ensuring you may lawfully access and use that content and that your use complies with applicable laws and the terms of each source.

Need help?

Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab, or visit the Apify help center. Feature requests are welcome - this Actor is actively maintained.