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I use C# and I have a program in .Net Framework and .Net 8. I need to be able to retrieve text from a PDF by paragraphs.
I am currently using itextsharp.dll but it seems to be from 2006 and is no longer used.
I would like to be recommended a free software to replace itextsharp and to know how to extract paragraphs.
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Hi @zequion , Welcome to Microsoft Q&A,
Currently Microsoft does not provide a built-in library for parsing PDF in .NET.
Hi @zequion , If you want Microsoft to provide corresponding APIs in the future, you can go to Github to raise an issue and post the link here.
You can see this thread : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/609757/read-data-from-searchable-pdf (itext7)
I have read that it is now itext8 but it is paid or free if it is for an opensource project, but it is not.
The problem is that no one explains how to extract paragraphs of text from a PDF and they only show how to extract lines. I need to know if there is a DLL that does this and that is not paid. Another option is for someone to explain in detail the procedure to do it.
To extract paragraphs from PDF, the challenge lies in how the text is structured in PDF files. Most libraries extract text line by line, because that is how text is usually stored in PDF. However, some libraries and methods allow you to group lines into paragraphs based on certain criteria (e.g., proximity of lines, indentation). Microsoft currently does not have a PDF library that does this.