Extract formatted text from documents

GroupDocs.Parser allows to extract formatted text from documents for those cases when simple plain text is not enough and you may need to keep formatting like text style, table layout etc.

This feature allows to extract text with integrated HTML tags, or Markdown syntax. Even PlainText mode allows to convert your documents to high quality text with integrated ASCII formatting symbols for tables, lists etc.

Extract formatted text from documents

To extract a formatted text from documents simply call the getFormattedText(FormattedTextOptions) method:

TextReader getFormattedText(FormattedTextOptions options);

This method returns an instance of TextReader class with an extracted text. FormattedTextOptions has the following constructor:

FormattedTextOptions(FormattedTextMode mode);

FormattedTextMode enumeration has the following members:

MemberDescription
HtmlHTML format.
MarkdownMarkdown format.
PlainTextPlain text format.

TextReader class extends java.io.Reader and adds the following members:

MemberDescription
readLineReads a line of characters from the text reader and returns the data as a string.
readToEndReads all characters from the current position to the end of the text reader and returns them as one string.

Here are the steps to extract a HTML formatted text from the document:

The following example shows how to extract a document text as HTML text:

// Create an instance of Parser class
try (Parser parser = new Parser(Constants.SampleDocx)) {
    // Extract a formatted text into the reader
    try (TextReader reader = parser.getFormattedText(new FormattedTextOptions(FormattedTextMode.Html))) {
        // Print a formatted text from the document
        // If formatted text extraction isn't supported, a reader is null
        System.out.println(reader == null ? "Formatted text extraction isn't suppported" : reader.readToEnd());
    }
}

More resources

Advanced usage topics

To learn more about document data extraction features and get familiar how to extract text, images, forms and more, please refer to the advanced usage section.

GitHub examples

You may easily run the code above and see the feature in action in our GitHub examples:

Free online document parser App

Along with full featured Java library we provide simple, but powerful free Apps.

You are welcome to extract data from PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX, Emails and more with our free online Free Online Document Parser App.