Perl Requires Chilkat v11.7.0+

Extract a PDF Table with Merged Cells

See more PDF Text Extraction Examples

Demonstrates how merged cells are reported by the "tables" operation: a header cell that spans several columns has colSpan greater than 1, and a row label that spans several rows has rowSpan greater than 1. Also shows the minRows and minColumns options. 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 PDF used in this example is available at spans_table.pdf

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

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

# Grids smaller than minRows x minColumns are not reported as tables.  The defaults are 2 and 2.
# Setting them higher skips small boxes that are not really tables.
$json->UpdateInt('minRows', 3);
$json->UpdateInt('minColumns', 3);

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

print 'Tables found: ', $jsonOut->IntOf('count'), "\n";
print $jsonOut->IntOf('tables[0].rows'), ' rows x ', $jsonOut->IntOf('tables[0].columns'), " columns\n";

# A merged cell is reported once, at its top-left position, with its spans.
# The positions it covers have no cell of their own.
my $rowSpan = 0;
my $colSpan = 0;
my $j = 0;
my $count_j = $jsonOut->SizeOfArray('tables[0].cells');
while ($j < $count_j) {
    $jsonOut->J($j);
    $rowSpan = $jsonOut->IntOf('tables[0].cells[j].rowSpan');
    $colSpan = $jsonOut->IntOf('tables[0].cells[j].colSpan');
    if (($rowSpan > 1) || ($colSpan > 1)) {
        print 'row ', $jsonOut->IntOf('tables[0].cells[j].row'), ', col ', $jsonOut->IntOf('tables[0].cells[j].col'), ': "', $jsonOut->StringOf('tables[0].cells[j].text'), '" spans ', $rowSpan, ' row(s) and ', $colSpan, " column(s)\n";
    }

    $j = $j + 1;
}

# Sample output:

# Tables found: 1
# 6 rows x 6 columns
# row 0, col 0: "Area" spans 2 row(s) and 1 column(s)
# row 0, col 1: "City" spans 2 row(s) and 1 column(s)
# row 0, col 2: "First Half" spans 1 row(s) and 2 column(s)
# row 0, col 4: "Second Half" spans 1 row(s) and 2 column(s)
# row 2, col 0: "East" spans 2 row(s) and 1 column(s)
# row 4, col 0: "West" spans 2 row(s) and 1 column(s)