PHP & PDF Question

[ruggeddesign]

I am trying to streamline information flow for a printing press. I have run into a problem and I was looking to see if anybody around here might have some basic suggestions.

The estimating department emails .pdf Files to the sales department. These PDFs include lots of information but are standardized forms created by a LOGIC system and they all have the same basic layout/structure. My question is this:

Is there a way to extract text values from a PDF?

I have seen a few different programs out there but most of them seem to be based on a reverse idea: text-to-PDF. I need PDF-to-Text essentially - I am only looking to rip out a few pieces of information.

Any ideas?

[mlseim]

It sounds like your company has it's own server.

Have the IT people see if "XPDF" is installed.

http://onaje.com/php/article.php4/55

It basically takes a PDF file and converts to "loose" text (no formatting).
With that, it could be read by any scripting language.

I think this will be somewhat advanced and require IT assistance.


EDIT: Here's a stand-alone option:
http://www.verypdf.com/pdf2txt/pdf2txt.htm


.