Tutorial Details

Hi Guys,

This extensive guide will teach you how to read content from PDF files in Laravel. I would like to share with you how to read pdf files in Laravel. Here you will learn Laravel read content from a pdf file. I would like to show you read PDF file text in Laravel. follow the below example for how to read text from a PDF file in Laravel.

If you want to read content from a pdf file in Laravel then I will give you a simple example here. we will use spatie/pdf-to-text composer package to read pdf files in the Laravel application.

so, let's follow the below steps to read the pdf file in Laravel.

Step 1: Install Laravel App

This step is not required; however, if you have not created the Laravel app, then you may go ahead and execute the below command: 

composer create-project laravel/laravel example-app

Step 2: Install spatie/pdf-to-text

Here, we will install a Laravel spatie/pdf-to-text package that allows us to read a pdf file. so, let's run the following command:

composer require spatie/pdf-to-text

Step 3: Install Requirements

Here, we used spatie/pdf-to-text package to read a pdf file. this package needs pdftotext system software. so you need to install it in your system or server with the following commands. so, let's run the following command:

For Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install poppler-utils

For Mac:

brew install poppler

For RedHat, CentOS, Rocky Linux or Fedora:

yum install poppler-utils

Step 4: Add Route

Furthermore, open the routes/web.php file and add one route to call the pdf file code.

routes/web.php

<?php
  
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
  
use App\Http\Controllers\PDFController;
  
/* 
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Web Routes
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here is where you can register web routes for your application. These
| routes are loaded by the RouteServiceProvider within a group which
| contains the "web" middleware group. Now create something great!
|
*/
  
Route::controller(PDFController::class)->group(function(){
    Route::get('read-pdf-file', 'index');
});

Step 5: Create PDFController

In this step, we will create a new PDFController; in this file, we will add two method index() to read a pdf file.

Make sure you have sample-demo.pdf in your public folder. i have already given bellow:

next, let's update the following code to Controller File.

app/Http/Controllers/PDFController.php

<?php
      
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
       
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Spatie\PdfToText\Pdf;
    
class PDFController extends Controller
{
       
    /**
     * Show the application dashboard.
     *
     * @return \Illuminate\Http\Response
     */
    public function index()
    {
        $text = Pdf::getText(public_path('sample-demo.pdf'));
  
        dd($text);
    }
     
}   

Run Laravel App:

All the required steps have been done, now you have to type the given below command and hit enter to run the Laravel app:

 

php artisan serve

Now, Go to your web browser, type the given URL, and view the app output:

http://localhost:8000/read-pdf-file

I hope it can help you...