README

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slate: the easiest way to get text from PDFs in Python
======================================================


Slate is a Python package that simplifies the process of extracting
text from PDF files. It depends on the PDFMiner package.

Slate provides one class, PDF. PDF takes a file-like object and
will extract all text from the document, presentating each page
as a string of text:

  >>> with open('example.pdf') as f:
  ...    doc = slate.PDF(f)
  ...
  >>> doc 
  [..., ..., ...]
  >>> doc[1]
  'Text from page 2...'

If your pdf is password protected, pass the password as the
second argument:

  >>> with open('secrets.pdf') as f:
  ...     doc = slate.PDF(f, 'password')
  ...
  >>> doc[0]
  "My mother doesn't know this, but..."

More complex operations
-----------------------

If you would like access to the images, font files and other
information, then take some time to learn the PDFMiner API.


What is wrong with PDFMiner?
----------------------------

  1. Getting simple things done, like extracting the text
     is quite complex. The program is not designed to return
     Python objects, which makes interfacing things irritating.
  2. It's an extremely complete set of tools, with multiple 
     and moderately  steep learning curves.
  3. It's not written with hackability in mind.


GPL?
----

If you would like to use this software in a non-free manner,
please contact the copyright owner.