Text

Text

This page covers reading text back out of a page, at three levels of detail: plain text, structured layout blocks, and individual positioned glyphs. For writing text onto a page, see Core API and Core API.

Extracting Plain Text

Page.GetText() returns the page’s assembled plain text, in reading order. It is the simplest way to confirm what text a page actually contains — for example, after flattening a field or applying a redaction.

const page = doc.Pages[0];
console.log(page.GetText().includes('Internal memo'));

Structured Text

Page.GetStructuredText() extracts positioned text grouped into lines (by baseline) and paragraph-like blocks (by vertical gap and left-edge alignment), returning TextBlock[] — useful when you need layout, not just a flat string.

Glyph-Level Introspection

visitContent(doc, page, visitor) walks a page’s content streams — including into Form XObjects — and calls the matching handler on visitor for every glyph, image, or path it encounters. The glyph handler receives a GlyphEvent: the glyph’s text, its device-space quad, fontSize, color, and provenance fields such as mcid (its enclosing marked-content element, if any) and artifact (true when drawn inside an /Artifact scope).

import { visitContent } from '@asposefoss/pdf';

let glyphCount = 0;
visitContent(doc, page, {
  glyph: (e) => {
    glyphCount++;
    if (e.artifact) return;       // skip decorative content
    console.log(e.text, e.quad, e.color);
  },
});
console.log('glyphs drawn:', glyphCount);

Tips and Best Practices

• Use Page.GetText() for a quick presence/absence check; use visitContent() with a glyph handler when you need each glyph’s exact position, font size, or color.
• Check GlyphEvent.artifact to skip decorative content (page furniture, backgrounds) that a tagged document marks as /Artifact rather than real content.
• GlyphEvent.mcid links a glyph back to its enclosing structure element when the document is tagged — combine with Structure to walk from a glyph to its logical element.
• Page.GetStructuredText() groups glyphs into blocks for you; reach for visitContent() directly only when you need per-glyph detail GetStructuredText() does not expose.

Common Issues

FAQ

What is the difference between GetText and GetStructuredText?

GetText() returns one flat string of the page’s assembled text. GetStructuredText() returns TextBlock[] — text grouped into lines and paragraph-like blocks by baseline and layout, useful when position matters.

How do I get the exact position and font size of each character?

Call visitContent(doc, page, { glyph: (e) => ... }). Each GlyphEvent carries the glyph’s text, device-space quad, fontSize, color, and baseline angle.

Can I tell whether a piece of text is real content or decoration?

Yes — GlyphEvent.artifact is true when the glyph was drawn inside an /Artifact marked-content scope, the same distinction Document.AutoTag() uses when deciding what to tag.

Does text extraction see content inside Form XObjects?

Yes — visitContent() walks into Form XObjects as part of its traversal, so glyphs drawn through a reused form are still visited.

API Reference Summary

See Also

• Aspose.PDF — Enterprise Documentation