PdfElixide

Elixir bindings for pdf_oxide, a high-performance PDF library written in Rust. Built with Rustler.

⚠️ Status: This project is under active development. The public API may change between minor versions until the 1.0 release. The issue tracker is currently disabled.

Features

• Open PDFs from file paths or in-memory binaries
• Read page count, PDF version, metadata, permissions, page labels, outlines, optional-content layers, and spot inks
• Extract text, words, lines, characters, and spans with page geometry and typographic metadata
• Convert individual pages or whole documents to Markdown or HTML
• Search literal text or regular expressions and locate matches on the page
• Detect tables and render them as Markdown, HTML, or plain text
• Extract vector paths, rectangles, straight lines, raster images, and embedded fonts
• Read annotations and AcroForm fields, with check boxes, radio groups, combo boxes and the rest classified from their field flags
• Fill AcroForm fields and save edited PDFs to a file or binary
• Restrict extraction by region and configure artifacts, layers, inks, reading order, table detection, and span merging
• Share one open document across processes for concurrent native reads
• Release document, editor, image, font, and table resources explicitly when desired

Requirements

• Elixir ~> 1.15
• A compatible Erlang/OTP release

The NIF ships as a precompiled binary through rustler_precompiled, so normal installation does not require Rust. A stable Rust toolchain is needed only when building the NIF from source.

Installation

Add pdf_elixide to mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:pdf_elixide, "~> 0.13.0"}
  ]
end

Then fetch and compile the dependency:

mix deps.get
mix compile

The precompiled NIF is downloaded automatically on the first build.

Quick start

Open and inspect a document

Document inspection lives on PdfElixide.Document:

alias PdfElixide.Document

doc = Document.open!("path/to/file.pdf")

{1, 7} = Document.version(doc)
{:ok, page_count} = Document.page_count(doc)
{:ok, first_page} = Document.text(doc, 0)
{:ok, all_text} = Document.text(doc)

Page indices are zero-based. The version and source path are stored on the Elixir struct. The page count is also cached when it can be determined while opening; if not, page_count/1 asks the open native document.

Most fallible functions have a bang variant that returns the value directly and raises PdfElixide.Error on failure:

page_count = Document.page_count!(doc)
text = Document.text!(doc, 0)

Documents loaded from memory use the same API:

bytes = File.read!("path/to/file.pdf")
doc = Document.from_binary!(bytes)

Extract structured content

Use the extractor that matches the level of detail you need:

{:ok, words} = Document.words(doc, 0)
{:ok, lines} = Document.text_lines(doc, 0)
{:ok, spans} = Document.spans(doc, 0)
{:ok, chars} = Document.chars(doc, 0)

Each returned struct includes its page and geometry. Words and lines provide a convenient reading-level view; spans retain PDF text-state runs; characters retain per-glyph details.

Every extractor is also available from a page value, and a document is enumerable over its pages:

alias PdfElixide.Document.Page

doc
|> Enum.at(0)
|> Page.words!()

The same pattern applies to tables, paths, images, fonts, and annotations. See the PdfElixide.Document documentation for their return types and extraction options.

Convert to Markdown or HTML

Convert one page or the whole document:

{:ok, markdown} = Document.to_markdown(doc)
{:ok, first_page_markdown} = Document.to_markdown(doc, 0)

{:ok, html} = Document.to_html(doc)
{:ok, positioned_html} = Document.to_html(doc, preserve_layout: true)

Options control heading and table detection, images, form fields, reading order, and related conversion behavior. The result of to_html/1,2,3 is an HTML fragment rather than a complete document; consult its API documentation before rendering untrusted paths through :image_output_dir.

Search

Searches return matches with page numbers and bounding boxes:

Document.search!(doc, "Figure 3")
Document.search!(doc, "figure 3", 4, case_insensitive: true)
Document.search!(doc, ~S"Figure \d+", literal: false)

Patterns are literal by default. Regular expressions use Rust regex syntax. The Search guide covers pattern options, match geometry, and the per-page search index.

Fill a form

Open a mutable editor, change existing fields, and save the result:

alias PdfElixide.Editor
alias PdfElixide.Form

"path/to/form.pdf"
|> Editor.open!()
|> Form.put_value!("full_name", "Jane Doe")
|> Form.put_value!("subscribe", true)
|> Editor.save!("path/to/filled.pdf")
|> Editor.close()

Editing functions return the same mutable editor handle, so rebinding does not fork its state. Editor.to_binary/2 returns a PDF binary instead of writing a file. See the Forms guide for field kinds and flags, bulk updates, save behavior, signature fields, and button-field limitations.

Release native resources

Native memory is released automatically when the BEAM garbage-collects a handle. Long-lived processes can release it at a chosen point:

:ok = Document.close(doc)
true = Document.closed?(doc)

{:error, %PdfElixide.Error{reason: :closed}} = Document.text(doc, 0)

close/1 is idempotent and waits for calls already using the same handle. Editors, extracted images, fonts, and tables provide the same close/1 and closed?/1 pair. Closing an editor discards unsaved edits; closing a document does not invalidate images, fonts, or tables already extracted from it. See the Concurrency guide before sharing handles with workers that may also close them.

Documentation

Full API documentation is published on HexDocs.

License

Released under the MIT License.