Reading PDF Files in C++

There are a number of utiities with source code for writing PDF files (including Max OS X where it is the native Metafile format) but not so many for reading. Xpdf is a GPL'd open source project that does just that. Its primary use is on Unix/Linux or any Operating System that supports X-Windows but there are components that can be used for extracting text etc that can be used on Win 32 or any non X-Windows syastem.

Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) is now 15 years old and based on PostScript, the printer became as ISO open standard in July this year. As well as text it can include transparency, bitmaps and fonts and can of course be encrypted. Xpdf does not decrypt PDFs.

• Link to C++ Code Library