Data Pipelines

pdfminer.six

Community-maintained PDF extraction tool for Python.

Status
Generally available
Last checked
Aging · Sep 1, 2026
License
Open source
Pricing
Free tier · from $0
Visit pdfminer.six Compare with alternatives

What it is

Pdfminer.six is a community maintained fork of the original PDFMiner, designed to extract text and layout information from PDF documents. It's particularly useful for developers working with unstructured data in PDFs who need precise control over how content is extracted.

Pdfminer.six stands out by offering robust and precise text and layout extraction capabilities from PDFs, making it a preferred choice for developers working with unstructured data in Python.

When it fits — and when it doesn’t

A good fit for

  • Developers who need to extract text and layout information from PDFs with high precision

  • Projects requiring the processing of large volumes of PDF documents for data extraction purposes

Look elsewhere if

  • Users looking for a graphical user interface (GUI) tool for manual PDF manipulation

  • Scenarios where real-time PDF content extraction is required, as it may not be optimized for speed

Known weaknesses

Each one links to the public issue, changelog or docs page it came from, where we have one.

  1. 01

    Frequent breaking changes between versions

    Historical migrations from v20191125 to v20200418 required significant updates to existing codebases due to API changes.

  2. 02

    Limited support for complex PDF layouts

    pdfminer.six may struggle with extracting text from PDFs that have intricate layouts, embedded images, or non-standard formatting.

  3. 03

    Performance issues with large PDF files

    Processing large or highly formatted PDF documents can be slow and resource-intensive, leading to extended processing times.

What it does well

  • Extract text and layout information from PDFs

  • Support for Python 3.x

  • Community maintained with active development

Pricing

Free tier
YesOpen source — free to use
Paid from
$0
Model
Flat rate
Enterprise plan
No

Pricing not independently confirmed — check the vendor’s page.

Performance benchmarks

How Fast Is It?

Set up pdfminer.six

Setup steps, common gotchas and what to check after 30 days.

Open the setup guide →