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PDF Oxide

Getting Started with PDF Oxide (Rust)

PDF Oxide is the fastest Rust PDF crate with built-in text extraction — 0.8ms mean, 100% pass rate on 3,830 PDFs. One library for extracting, creating, and editing PDFs.

Installation

Add pdf_oxide to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
pdf_oxide = "0.3"

Feature Flags

Enable only the capabilities you need:

# Default -- text extraction, creation, editing
pdf_oxide = "0.3"

# Page rendering to images
pdf_oxide = { version = "0.3", features = ["rendering"] }

# Barcode generation
pdf_oxide = { version = "0.3", features = ["barcodes"] }

# Digital signatures
pdf_oxide = { version = "0.3", features = ["signatures"] }

# Office document conversion (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX)
pdf_oxide = { version = "0.3", features = ["office"] }

# Everything
pdf_oxide = { version = "0.3", features = ["full"] }

Opening a PDF

Use PdfDocument::open() to load a file and inspect its metadata.

use pdf_oxide::PdfDocument;

let doc = PdfDocument::open("research-paper.pdf")?;
println!("Pages: {}", doc.page_count());
println!("PDF version: {}", doc.version());

Text Extraction

Plain Text

use pdf_oxide::PdfDocument;

let doc = PdfDocument::open("report.pdf")?;
let text = doc.extract_text(0)?;
println!("{text}");

Text Spans

extract_spans() returns a Vec<TextSpan> with font metadata for each run of identically-styled text.

use pdf_oxide::PdfDocument;

let doc = PdfDocument::open("paper.pdf")?;
let spans = doc.extract_spans(0)?;

for span in &spans {
    println!("'{}' at ({:.1}, {:.1}) font={} size={:.1}",
        span.text, span.x, span.y, span.font_name, span.font_size);
}

TextSpan fields:

Field Type Description
text String The text content
x f64 Horizontal position in points
y f64 Vertical position in points
font_name String PostScript font name
font_size f64 Font size in points
bbox Rect Bounding rectangle

Character-Level Extraction

extract_chars() returns a Vec<TextChar> with precise positioning for every character.

use pdf_oxide::PdfDocument;

let doc = PdfDocument::open("paper.pdf")?;
let chars = doc.extract_chars(0)?;

for ch in chars.iter().take(10) {
    println!("'{}' at ({:.1}, {:.1}) size={:.1} font={}",
        ch.char, ch.x, ch.y, ch.font_size, ch.font_name);
}

TextChar fields:

Field Type Description
char char The Unicode character
x f64 Horizontal position in points
y f64 Vertical position in points
font_size f64 Font size in points
font_name String PostScript font name
bbox Rect Bounding rectangle

Markdown Conversion

Convert a page to Markdown with configurable options.

use pdf_oxide::PdfDocument;
use pdf_oxide::converters::ConversionOptions;

let doc = PdfDocument::open("paper.pdf")?;
let options = ConversionOptions { detect_headings: true, ..Default::default() };
let md = doc.to_markdown(0, &options)?;
println!("{md}");

HTML Conversion

use pdf_oxide::PdfDocument;

let doc = PdfDocument::open("paper.pdf")?;
let html = doc.to_html(0)?;
println!("{html}");

Image Extraction

extract_images() returns metadata and raw data for every image on a page, including images in content streams and nested Form XObjects.

use pdf_oxide::PdfDocument;

let doc = PdfDocument::open("brochure.pdf")?;
let images = doc.extract_images(0)?;

for (i, img) in images.iter().enumerate() {
    println!("Image {i}: {}x{} {} {}bpc ({} bytes)",
        img.width, img.height, img.color_space,
        img.bits_per_component, img.data.len());
}

Write images directly to disk with extract_images_to_files():

let doc = PdfDocument::open("brochure.pdf")?;
let paths = doc.extract_images_to_files(0, "output_dir")?;
for path in &paths {
    println!("Saved: {}", path.display());
}

PDF Creation

Factory Methods

The Pdf type provides high-level factory methods.

use pdf_oxide::api::Pdf;

let mut pdf = Pdf::from_markdown("# Hello World\n\nThis is a PDF.")?;
pdf.save("output.pdf")?;

let mut pdf = Pdf::from_html("<h1>Invoice</h1><p>Amount: $42</p>")?;
pdf.save("invoice.pdf")?;

let mut pdf = Pdf::from_text("Plain text content.")?;
pdf.save("notes.pdf")?;

let mut pdf = Pdf::from_image("scan.jpg")?;
pdf.save("scan.pdf")?;

PdfBuilder Fluent API

For full control over metadata, page size, and margins:

use pdf_oxide::api::PdfBuilder;
use pdf_oxide::writer::PageSize;

let mut pdf = PdfBuilder::new()
    .title("Annual Report")
    .author("Acme Corp")
    .page_size(PageSize::A4)
    .margins(72.0, 72.0, 72.0, 72.0)
    .font_size(11.0)
    .from_markdown("# Annual Report\n\n...")?;

pdf.save("annual-report.pdf")?;

DocumentBuilder Low-Level API

For pixel-level placement of text, shapes, and images:

use pdf_oxide::writer::DocumentBuilder;

let mut builder = DocumentBuilder::new();
builder.add_page(612.0, 792.0)
    .text("Hello, world!", 72.0, 720.0, 12.0)
    .rect(100.0, 600.0, 200.0, 50.0)
    .image_at("logo.png", 400.0, 700.0, 100.0, 50.0)?;

builder.save("custom.pdf")?;

Search for text across the document or with fine-grained options.

use pdf_oxide::api::Pdf;

let pdf = Pdf::open("manual.pdf")?;

// Simple search across all pages
let results = pdf.search("configuration")?;
for r in &results {
    println!("Page {}: '{}' at ({:.0}, {:.0})", r.page, r.text, r.x, r.y);
}

use pdf_oxide::api::{Pdf, SearchOptions};

let pdf = Pdf::open("manual.pdf")?;

let opts = SearchOptions {
    case_sensitive: false,
    whole_word: true,
    max_results: Some(50),
    ..Default::default()
};
let results = pdf.search_with_options("configuration", &opts)?;

Editing

DocumentEditor

Open an existing PDF for structural edits like page rotation and form field manipulation.

use pdf_oxide::api::Pdf;

let mut pdf = Pdf::open_editor("form-template.pdf")?;

// Rotate a page
pdf.rotate_page(0, 90)?;

// Add a form field
pdf.add_text_field("name", [100.0, 700.0, 300.0, 720.0])?;
pdf.add_checkbox("agree", [100.0, 650.0, 120.0, 670.0], false)?;

pdf.save("modified.pdf")?;

DOM-Like Page Editing

Navigate page elements and modify text in place.

use pdf_oxide::api::Pdf;

let mut pdf = Pdf::open("document.pdf")?;
let mut page = pdf.page(0)?;

// Find text elements
for t in page.find_text_containing("Draft") {
    println!("Found '{}' at {:?}", t.text(), t.bbox());
}

// Replace text
let matches = page.find_text_containing("Draft");
for t in &matches {
    page.set_text(t.id(), "Final")?;
}

pdf.save_page(page)?;
pdf.save("updated.pdf")?;

Error Handling

All fallible operations return Result<T, PdfError>. The PdfError enum covers the main failure modes.

use pdf_oxide::PdfDocument;
use pdf_oxide::PdfError;

fn extract(path: &str) -> Result<String, PdfError> {
    let doc = PdfDocument::open(path)?;
    doc.extract_text(0)
}

match extract("file.pdf") {
    Ok(text) => println!("{text}"),
    Err(PdfError::Io(e)) => eprintln!("I/O error: {e}"),
    Err(PdfError::Parse(msg)) => eprintln!("Parse error: {msg}"),
    Err(PdfError::Password) => eprintln!("Password required"),
    Err(PdfError::PageOutOfRange { index, count }) => {
        eprintln!("Page {index} does not exist ({count} pages total)");
    }
    Err(e) => eprintln!("Error: {e}"),
}

PdfError variants:

Variant Description
Io File system or I/O failure
Parse Malformed PDF structure
Password Document is encrypted and no password was given
PageOutOfRange Requested page index exceeds page count

Next Steps