Extract text from documents

GroupDocs.Parser allows to extract text from PDF, Emails, Ebooks, Microsoft Office formats: Word (DOC, DOCX), PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX), Excel (XLS, XLSX), LibreOffice formats and many others (see full list at supported document formats article).

GroupDocs.Parser’s text extractor is easy to use and powerful at the same time (to resolve complex scenarios see advanced usage section).

This article demonstrates how to implement the simplest scenario - extract text from any supported format without additional settings.

Extract text from documents

To extract text from documents simply call GetText method:

TextReader GetText();

Methods return an instance of TextReader class with an extracted text. 

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

  • Instantiate Parser object for the initial document;
  • Call GetText method and obtain TextReader object;
  • Check if reader isn’t null (text extraction is supported for the document);
  • Read a text from reader.

The following example shows how to extract a text from a document:

// Create an instance of Parser class
using(Parser parser = new Parser(filePath))
{
    // Extract a text into the reader
    using(TextReader reader = parser.GetText())
    {
        // Print a text from the document
        // If text extraction isn't supported, a reader is null
        Console.WriteLine(reader == null ? "Text extraction isn't supported" : reader.ReadToEnd());
    }
}

More resources

Advanced usage topics

To learn more about text extraction features, please refer 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 text extractor App

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

You are welcome to extract text from your documents with our free online GroupDocs Parser App.

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