tabula-java is a library for extracting tables from PDF files — it is the table extraction engine that powers Tabula (repo). You can use tabula-java as a command-line tool to programmatically extract tables from PDFs.
(This is the new version of the extraction engine; the previous code can be found at tabula-extractor.)
© 2014-2018 Manuel Aristarán. Available under MIT License. See LICENSE.
Download a version of the tabula-java's jar, with all dependencies included, that works on Mac, Windows and Linux from our releases page.
tabula-java provides a command line application:
$ java -jar target/tabula-1.0.2-jar-with-dependencies.jar --help
usage: tabula [-a <AREA>] [-b <DIRECTORY>] [-c <COLUMNS>] [-d] [-f
<FORMAT>] [-g] [-h] [-i] [-l] [-n] [-o <OUTFILE>] [-p <PAGES>] [-r]
[-s <PASSWORD>] [-t] [-u] [-v]
Tabula helps you extract tables from PDFs
-a,--area <AREA> Portion of the page to analyze. Accepts top,
left,bottom,right.
Example: --area 269.875,12.75,790.5,561.
If all values are between 0-100 (inclusive)
and preceded by '%', input will be taken as
% of actual height or width of the page.
Example: --area %0,0,100,50.
To specify multiple areas, -a option should
be repeated. Default is entire page
-b,--batch <DIRECTORY> Convert all .pdfs in the provided directory.
-c,--columns <COLUMNS> X coordinates of column boundaries. Example
--columns 10.1,20.2,30.3
-d,--debug Print detected table areas instead of
processing.
-f,--format <FORMAT> Output format: (CSV,TSV,JSON). Default: CSV
-g,--guess Guess the portion of the page to analyze per
page.
-h,--help Print this help text.
-i,--silent Suppress all stderr output.
-l,--lattice Force PDF to be extracted using lattice-mode
extraction (if there are ruling lines
separating each cell, as in a PDF of an Excel
spreadsheet)
-n,--no-spreadsheet [Deprecated in favor of -t/--stream] Force PDF
not to be extracted using spreadsheet-style
extraction (if there are no ruling lines
separating each cell)
-o,--outfile <OUTFILE> Write output to <file> instead of STDOUT.
Default: -
-p,--pages <PAGES> Comma separated list of ranges, or all.
Examples: --pages 1-3,5-7, --pages 3 or
--pages all. Default is --pages 1
-r,--spreadsheet [Deprecated in favor of -l/--lattice] Force
PDF to be extracted using spreadsheet-style
extraction (if there are ruling lines
separating each cell, as in a PDF of an Excel
spreadsheet)
-s,--password <PASSWORD> Password to decrypt document. Default is empty
-t,--stream Force PDF to be extracted using stream-mode
extraction (if there are no ruling lines
separating each cell)
-u,--use-line-returns Use embedded line returns in cells. (Only in
spreadsheet mode.)
-v,--version Print version and exit.
It also includes a debugging tool, run java -cp ./target/tabula-1.0.2-jar-with-dependencies.jar technology.tabula.debug.Debug -h for the available options.
You can also integrate tabula-java with any JVM language. For Java examples, see the tests folder.
JVM start-up time is a lot of the cost of the tabula command, so if you're trying to extract many tables from PDFs, you have a few options for speeding it up:
- the drip utility
- the Ruby, Python, R, and Node.js bindings
- writing your own program in any JVM language (Java, JRuby, Scala) that imports tabula-java.
- waiting for us to implement an API/server-style system (it's on the roadmap)
Clone this repo and run:
mvn clean compile assembly:single
Interested in helping out? We'd love to have your help!
You can help by:
- Reporting a bug.
- Adding or editing documentation.
- Contributing code via a Pull Request.
- Spreading the word about
tabula-javato people who might be able to benefit from using it.
You can also support our continued work on tabula-java with a one-time or monthly donation on OpenCollective. Organizations who use tabula-java can also sponsor the project for acknowledgement on our official site and this README.
Special thanks to the following users and organizations for generously supporting Tabula with donations and grants:
