[thelist] Reading a PDF file with PHP?

[Brooking, John]

I've Googled and also looked at php.net several times, and have not found any good answers to the questions "Can I read a PDF file with PHP?" and "Why can't I find any examples of reading a PDF?" I've found lots of people asking these questions, but no exact answers. All the libraries and products I've looked at talk about creating documents, but nothing about opening existing ones and parsing them.

I can understand that it might not be simple to understand a document semantically this way, but if you know sort of what you are expecting, isn't it at least technically possible to open it and find what you are looking for? If anyone has done this, especially with PHP, any pointers would be much appreciated. Thank you!

- John
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