How to extract images from PDF file using PowerShell

Question

_{Tuesday, September 10, 2013 3:11 PM | 1 vote}

Hi All,

I've been looking around online, and have seen various solutions for extracting / finding text in a PDF using PoSH. However, one thing I don't appear to have found yet is something that can identify attached images (JPG, BMP etc) in the PDF, and extract each to a file.

Can this be done? Having extracted the image file, I then want to compare it to a "library" file, to ensure that the content is as expected.

Am I on a mission impossible here? Or is it just a case of being close, and needing the cigar handed to me? :)

Cheers

Steve

All replies (4)

_{Tuesday, September 10, 2013 8:15 PM ✅Answered | 3 votes}

Hi Steve,

I'm not aware of a native way to do that through PowerShell but I have done it by using  pdfimages.exe that is part of the free xpdf pdftools set from http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html (scroll down to the precompiled binaries section and download the x86 Windows version):

#Extracts images from a PDF file 
#the images are converted to .jpg
function Extract-PDFImages($pdfPath,$imgFolder,$imgPrefix){
    if (!(Test-Path $imgFolder)){
        New-Item $imgFolder -ItemType Dir | Out-Null
    }
    $root="$imgFolder\$imgPrefix"
    & 'C:\misc\PDFTools\bin32\pdfimages.exe' "-j" "$pdfPath" "$root" 
    
}

Extract-PDFImages "c:\My.pdf" "c:\users\Administrator\Desktop\test" "img"

_{Wednesday, September 11, 2013 10:26 AM}

Hi,

I would like to confirm what is the current situation.

Please feel free to let us know if you need further assistance.

Regards.

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Vivian Wang
TechNet Community Support

_{Monday, October 21, 2013 3:32 PM}

Hi Mike / Vivian,

Apologies for not replying sooner - project demands meant I got sidetracked. As part of that, I've found a workaround that doesn't need PoSH (Using Smartbear's TestComplete / JScript)

That said, this workaround is still "in development" - and I'm not totally sure it's the solution - nor such a good solution as Mike's above. 

If nothing else - Mike's suggestion of using pdfimages.exe may prove VERY useful - even if in JScript, not in PoSH.

Apologies again, and thank you both very much for your time and assistance!

Jack of few trades. Master of even fewer.

_{Wednesday, June 7, 2017 3:50 PM}

Would this same solution work on Windows 10?