smalot / smalot/pdfparser

Hex (?) output

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Description

I use the parser to extract insurance policies I get from my insurer. Recently, they changed systems, and suddenly, when I try to parse their PDFs, the output looks like hex. See below for a sample.

536563757269747920436F64653A4141413230304339333238423442463338464646344436323838314239393045436C69656E7420436F64653A484156465433302D3230303735392F3049737375696E67204167656E743A20204D6F746F7263616465204C6F6E646F6E20466C656574204167656E74506167652031206F662031436F6E746163742054656C2E3A203032303737343131303530494D504F5254414E545448455345204E4F5445532041524520464F52 20 594F55522047554944414E4345546F20656E7375726520 66756C6C2070726F74656374696F6E20 756E64657220796F757220 706F6C69637920697420697320 657373656E7469616C 20746F20 6E6F7469667920 796F757220 4167656E7420776974682077686F6D20 796F7520617272616E676564 207468697320 696E737572616E6365206F66 20616E7920 6368616E676520 746F2074686520 64657461696C73 20

What can I do to translate this into human-readable text? Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere, or is this a fault with pdfparser?

I'm working with a single-page PDF. Using any online extractor, I am able to get the text out, so the PDF is fine, I think I need to change something in my process. Any help would be much appreciated.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing issue #121 with the affected single-page PDF and compare pdfparser's output with the online extractor linked in the report. Inspect how the parser handles the encoded text shown in the sample; done means identifying whether the changed PDF requires a parser setting or exposes a library fault, with a reproducible case and explanation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
php
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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