Perl Requires Chilkat v11.7.0+

Get a PDF Field Value by its Label (Value to the Right)

See more PDF Text Extraction Examples

Demonstrates the "label" option, which captures the text that belongs to a caption such as "Invoice Number:" without needing coordinates. With labelValue "right", the value is the rest of the label's line. Label matching ignores case, extra spaces and a trailing colon. Chilkat2 Perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# This example requires the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
# See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.

# The invoice used in this example is available at invoice_labels.pdf

my $pdf = Chilkat2::Pdf->new;
my $success = $pdf->LoadFile('qa_data/pdf/invoice_labels.pdf');
if (!$success) {
    print $pdf->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

my $json = Chilkat2::JsonObject->new;
my $jsonOut = Chilkat2::JsonObject->new;

# The invoice has lines such as "Invoice Number:   INV-2026-0412".
# The label option restricts the "text" operation to the text belonging to the label.
$json->UpdateString('label', 'Invoice Number');

# "right" means the value is the rest of the label's line.
# (The default, "auto", uses the rest of the line if there is text there, otherwise the block below.)
$json->UpdateString('labelValue', 'right');

$success = $pdf->ExtractText('text', $json, $jsonOut);
if (!$success) {
    print $pdf->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# The value is returned as the text.
print 'Invoice Number: ', $jsonOut->StringOf('text'), "\n";

# The labelMatches array tells where the label was found and how it appeared in the PDF.
print 'Found on page ', $jsonOut->IntOf('labelMatches[0].page'), ' as "', $jsonOut->StringOf('labelMatches[0].label'), "\"\n";

# Matching ignores case and the trailing colon, so these all work:
$json->UpdateString('label', 'CUSTOMER:');
$success = $pdf->ExtractText('text', $json, $jsonOut);
if (!$success) {
    print $pdf->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

print 'Customer: ', $jsonOut->StringOf('text'), "\n";

$json->UpdateString('label', 'due date');
$success = $pdf->ExtractText('text', $json, $jsonOut);
if (!$success) {
    print $pdf->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

print 'Due Date: ', $jsonOut->StringOf('text'), "\n";

# The totals at the foot of the invoice are right-aligned labels with the amount beside them.
$json->UpdateString('label', 'Total Due');
$success = $pdf->ExtractText('text', $json, $jsonOut);
if (!$success) {
    print $pdf->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

print 'Total Due: ', $jsonOut->StringOf('text'), "\n";

# A label that is not found is not an error.  The text is empty, labelMatches is empty,
# and the quality report has an issue with the code "labelNotFound".
$json->UpdateString('label', 'Tracking Number');
$success = $pdf->ExtractText('text', $json, $jsonOut);
if (!$success) {
    print $pdf->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

if ($jsonOut->SizeOfArray('labelMatches') == 0) {
    print 'Tracking Number: (not found) ', $jsonOut->StringOf('quality.pages[0].issues[0].code'), "\n";
}

# Sample output:

# Invoice Number: INV-2026-0412
# Found on page 1 as "Invoice Number:"
# Customer: Northwind Traders
# Due Date: April 13, 2026
# Total Due: $1,234.53
# Tracking Number: (not found) labelNotFound