Batch Extract Text from PDF

Text extraction reads the text-showing operations in each page’s content stream and reassembles the characters they draw. Done across a document set it is the practical way to make a pile of PDFs searchable, feed them to an indexer, or run any kind of analysis over their contents. The critical thing to know is that extraction only finds text that exists as text. A scanned document contains a photograph of words, with no characters in the content stream at all, so it yields an empty file — which is why the empty-file report matters: it tells you which inputs are scans needing OCR rather than leaving you to wonder why a document came back blank. Layout handling is the other real decision. Reading order produces continuous prose suited to indexing and analysis, while preserving layout keeps approximate positions, which is what you need when a page’s meaning depends on its table structure rather than on its sentences.