smalot / smalot/pdfparser

Metadata content garbled for some PDFs

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bug
Dominant language
PHP
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Description

  • PHP Version: 7.4.33
  • PDFParser Version: v2.10.0
Description:

For some PDFs (e.g., attached) the metadata is garbled. This seems to be associated with PDF's that are encrypted, but I don't know enough about the PDF standard to know whether encryption also applies to metadata.

PDF input

TZ_316_4_Gorochov.pdf

Expected output & actual output

Output from mutool is what I expect, e.g. Title is SYSTEMATICS OF THE AMERICAN KATYDIDS \(ORTHOPTERA: TETTIGONIIDAE\). COMMUNICATION 2:

mutool info TZ_316_4_Gorochov.pdf
TZ_316_4_Gorochov.pdf:

PDF-1.6
Info object (68 0 R):
<</CreationDate(D:20121225141316+04'00')/Author(A.V. Gorochov)/Creator(PScript5.dll Version 5.2.2)/Producer(Acrobat Distiller 9.5.2 \(Windows\))/ModDate(D:20121225161815+04'00')/Title(SYSTEMATICS OF THE AMERICAN KATYDIDS \(ORTHOPTERA: TETTIGONIIDAE\). COMMUNICATION 2)>>
Encryption object (70 0 R):
<</Length 128/Filter/Standard/O<0EBA1908E5CD53B188213637794EA65838027C93E38494B55544F4375B294C90>/P -1036/R 3/U<8049AC430DA9683FBBC0F5C6392E856600000000000000000000000000000000>/V 2>>
Pages: 22
...

What I get from PdfParser is the following:

*** Metadata ***
Array
(
    [CreationDate] => CŠtW“Ò˙Mð,¯š Wgá3agí
ÂQ©wèAuthor] => F…Iœ§E
    [Creator] => Wþ%Õ’^J…Vt¾øt?[ºzqbäÿ#i
    [Producer] => FÎÞ†^_é[²l÷Â}>ì:dyøí%
                                       a¤»fi²å
    [ModDate] => CŠtW“Ò˙Mð.¯Œ Tgá3agí
¨wèu³pô.@‘Ïˇ{@[òÜ¡ÐèU^éÛ3x=؈"¬OÔLŽOˆFêfl½‚,‹'f	H‚6
    [Pages] => 22
)

Code
<?php

// Example of PDF with bad characters

require_once (dirname(__FILE__) . '/vendor/autoload.php');

$filename = 'TZ_316_4_Gorochov.pdf';

$parser_config = new \Smalot\PdfParser\Config();
$parser_config->setRetainImageContent(false);
$parser_config->setIgnoreEncryption(true);

$parser = new \Smalot\PdfParser\Parser([], $parser_config);

// parse PDF
$pdf = $parser->parseFile($filename);
	
// Metadata
if (method_exists($pdf, 'getDetails'))
{
	$metadata = $pdf->getDetails();

	echo "*** Metadata ***\n";
	print_r($metadata); 

}

?>

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Research direction

Reproduce the issue with TZ_316_4_Gorochov.pdf using Parser, Config::setIgnoreEncryption(true), and parseFile(), then inspect the getDetails() metadata path for encrypted documents. Compare the returned fields with mutool info output; done means the metadata is decoded correctly for this PDF and existing metadata behavior remains intact.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
php
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

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