Read multiple pages of a pdf with read_lines

Question

I'm using pdftools to import text into R from a pdf, and readr to read it in line by line. It works for the first page but stops there.

It seems like it would be so simple to read in all pages of a document and yet I get the same result with several different documents. Going by the example code, is there a step I'm missing?

install.packages("pdftools")
install.packages("readr")
library(pdftools)
library(readr)    

download.file("http://www.africau.edu/images/default/sample.pdf", 
"sample.pdf")
sample <- pdf_text("sample.pdf")
sample <- read_lines(sample)

print(sample)

It might be relevant to add, running the read_lines command gives a warning: "running the read_lines command gives the following:

 "Warning message:
  In if (grepl("\n", file)) { :
  the condition has length > 1 and only the first element will be used""

Just tried your code and with the same file you used and could read both pages. — Taher A. Ghaleb, Dec 11 '18 at 04:32
I'm stumped then. I tried it again and it stops at the last line on the first page. — votmoyd, Dec 11 '18 at 04:43
That still shows only the 1st page. It might be relevant to add, running the read_lines command gives the following: "Warning message: In if (grepl("\n", file)) { : the condition has length > 1 and only the first element will be used" — votmoyd, Dec 11 '18 at 05:03
So, does this command `length(pdf_text("sample.pdf"))` give you `1` or `2`? — Taher A. Ghaleb, Dec 11 '18 at 05:06
Try this and let me if it works for you: `s <- unlist(strsplit(sample, split = "\r\n"))` — Taher A. Ghaleb, Dec 11 '18 at 05:25
I uninstalled readr and pdftools, restarted R, and reinstalled the packages and now all is well. Thank you for the help! — votmoyd, Dec 11 '18 at 05:55

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 11 '18 at 05:58

2

Got it to work by uninstalling readr and pdftools, restarting R, and reinstalling the packages.

answered Dec 11 '18 at 05:58

votmoyd

65
8

Read multiple pages of a pdf with read_lines

1 Answers1