[PDFBOX-1988] PDFBox ExtractText issue of PDF with no embedded fonts

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 1.8.4
• Fix Version/s: 1.8.5, 2.0.0
• Component/s: Rendering, Text extraction
• Labels: patch
• Environment: Windows 7; Also, PASE on IBM i
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Craig Strong
• Created: 14/Mar/14 16:59
• Updated: 02/May/14 06:12
• Resolved: 18/Mar/14 06:18

Description

I have been using PDFBox 1.8.4 to extract text from several different PDF files fine. I use the latest PDFBox app with ExtractText command line. There is one PDF that PDFBox (and iText) fails to extract any text even though I can extract the text with Adobe Reader and also pdftotext.exe part of XPdf. "java -jar pdfbox-app-1.8.4.jar ExtractText Test1.pdf Out.txt". I don't want to have to rely on using pdftotext.exe from a PC since this is part of an automated application. I think the error relates to an unknown font type and having to use the few fonts installed in the jar file. I tried running the API classes and trying to force a font from a certain location but I still got errors. I thought I loaded the font with the loadTTF method but I don't know if that did anything with the font. I would really like to have this working straight from the ExtractText class anyway.
Here are the errors I am getting. I tried this from both a Windows 7 PC and our IBM i in the PASE environment but I get the same errors. The section starting processEncodedText and on repeats a few times so I just included the first entries.

Mar 10, 2014 3:50:44 PM org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDFontFactory createFont
WARNING: Substituting TrueType for unknown font subtype=
Mar 10, 2014 3:50:45 PM org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine processOperator
WARNING: java.lang.NullPointerException
Throwable occurred: java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDTrueTypeFont.loadDescriptorDictionary(PDTrueTypeFont.java:375)
at org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDTrueTypeFont.ensureFontDescriptor(PDTrueTypeFont.java:221)

at org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDTrueTypeFont.<init>(PDTrueTypeFont.java:119)
at org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.font.PDFontFactory.createFont(PDFontFactory.java:121)
at org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.PDResources.getFonts(PDResources.java:204)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.getFonts(PDFStreamEngine.java:604)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.operator.SetTextFont.process(SetTextFont.java:54)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processOperator(PDFStreamEngine.java:554)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processSubStream(PDFStreamEngine.java:268)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processSubStream(PDFStreamEngine.java:235)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processStream(PDFStreamEngine.java:215)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFTextStripper.processPage(PDFTextStripper.java:456)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFTextStripper.processPages(PDFTextStripper.java:381)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFTextStripper.writeText(PDFTextStripper.java:340)
at org.apache.pdfbox.ExtractText.startExtraction(ExtractText.java:275)
at org.apache.pdfbox.ExtractText.main(ExtractText.java:85)
at org.apache.pdfbox.PDFBox.main(PDFBox.java:58)
Mar 10, 2014 3:50:45 PM org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine processEncodedText
WARNING: java.lang.NullPointerException

Throwable occurred: java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processEncodedText(PDFStreamEngine.java:355)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.operator.ShowText.process(ShowText.java:45)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processOperator(PDFStreamEngine.java:554)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processSubStream(PDFStreamEngine.java:268)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processSubStream(PDFStreamEngine.java:235)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processStream(PDFStreamEngine.java:215)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFTextStripper.processPage(PDFTextStripper.java:456)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFTextStripper.processPages(PDFTextStripper.java:381)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFTextStripper.writeText(PDFTextStripper.java:340)
at org.apache.pdfbox.ExtractText.startExtraction(ExtractText.java:275)
at org.apache.pdfbox.ExtractText.main(ExtractText.java:85)
at org.apache.pdfbox.PDFBox.main(PDFBox.java:58)
Mar 10, 2014 3:50:45 PM org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine processOperator
WARNING: java.lang.NullPointerException
Throwable occurred: java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processEncodedText(PDFStreamEngine.java:364)

at org.apache.pdfbox.util.operator.ShowText.process(ShowText.java:45)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processOperator(PDFStreamEngine.java:554)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processSubStream(PDFStreamEngine.java:268)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processSubStream(PDFStreamEngine.java:235)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFStreamEngine.processStream(PDFStreamEngine.java:215)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFTextStripper.processPage(PDFTextStripper.java:456)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFTextStripper.processPages(PDFTextStripper.java:381)
at org.apache.pdfbox.util.PDFTextStripper.writeText(PDFTextStripper.java:340)
at org.apache.pdfbox.ExtractText.startExtraction(ExtractText.java:275)
at org.apache.pdfbox.ExtractText.main(ExtractText.java:85)
at org.apache.pdfbox.PDFBox.main(PDFBox.java:58)

Thanks,

Craig Strong