How to extract whole text from a PDF file with the PDF

[Paul Dupuis]

On 12/14/2021 10:33 AM, Paul McClernan via use-livecode wrote:
> I was fairly certain that XPDF external was/is based on this XPDF:
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xpdf
> Which has both GPL and Proprietary Licensing options available.

Nope. My company (Researchware) and I paid for the development of the 
XPDF External shipped with LiveCode. Monte did the code for us when he 
was an independent LiveCode developer, paid directly by Researchware. It 
is based on the C++ "external" API template, calling the Google PDFium 
library. Researchware then transferred the license to LiveCode when 
Monte went to work for them. I called it XPDF because it was an eXternal 
for PDFs. I was unaware (at the time) for anything else using the XPDF 
name. And yes, I am to blame (or credit) for the majority of the syntax 
for messages, commands, and functions of the XPDF external (with Monte 
correcting me when I had a really stupid syntax specified)

>
> The newer (> 9.6.3) PDF Widget is based on PDFium which is an offshoot
> project that spawned from Google’s Chromium project. I’m not sure about the
> licensing involved with that.
>
> If you’re running macOS I released a (semi-complete) library that uses
> Apple PDFKit (not to be confused with several other PDFKits that are out
> there, such as this JS PDFKit: https://pdfkit.org ). That can extract text
> from PDF, per-document or per-page.
>
> At some point I may update that library, adding the ability to extract RTF
> styled text and also make iso it can use UIView, which would make available
> on iOS devices too, but I’m really busy right now so that’s not likely to
> get attention from me anytime soon.
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 13, 2021 at 12:47 PM Richard Gaskin via use-livecode <
> use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>
>> Richmond wrote:
>>
>>   > On 12.12.21 21:33, Richard Gaskin wrote:
>>   >> Stam Kapetanakis wrote:
>>   >> > i presume the pdf widget in pro is the opensource xpdfReader but
>>   >> > don’t know for sure.
>>   >>
>>   >> If it is that would be problematic, as the open source edition of
>>   >> xpdfReader is licensed under GPL, and LC no longer has an edition
>>   >> compatible with GPL.
>>   >
>>   > The consequences are endless.
>>
>> Note my "if".
>>
>> In the next message in this thread Paul clarified that the component is
>> not derived from a GPL-governed work, so the rights and responsibilities
>> of the GPL do not apply here:
>> http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-livecode/2021-December/266435.html
>>
>> --
>>    Richard Gaskin
>>    Fourth World Systems
>>    Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
>>    ____________________________________________________________________
>>    Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com
>>
>>
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