File Content Extraction 25.2
Filter SDK Python Programming Guide

# Use the pdf2sr Reader

The `pdf2sr` reader is an alternative that can be used instead of `pdfsr` for filtering PDF files. It uses a different parsing technology.

The `pdf2sr` reader has the following features:

- supports standard and custom metadata (non-XMP)
- supports basic text extraction
- supports password protected PDFs
- supports table detection (see Table Detection for PDF Files)

The `pdf2sr` reader has the following limitations:

- does not support logical order
- does not support bidi PDFs
- does not extract subfiles
- does not extract bookmarks from PDFs
- does not give estimations on percent embedded fonts match with display glyphs
- does not support XMP metadata
- does not support headers or footers
- does not support tagged content (PDFs)
- does not filter text from XFA-based PDF forms
- does not report document restrictions (see Document Restrictions)

- cannot reconstruct missing information from Arabic text in converted PDFs (when you use Microsoft Print to PDF to convert Word documents that contain Arabic text in Calibri or Sakkal Majalla font to PDF, the resulting file is often incomplete because information that is required to interpret the text content is missing. The pdfsr reader can reconstruct the missing information, but pdf2sr does not do this).

To use the pdf2sr reader

1. Open the `formats.ini` file with a text editor.

2. In the `[Formats]` section, set the following:

       230=pdf2

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Version 25.2 | Last updated April 2025

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Product: File Content Extraction 25.2

Topic Title: Use the pdf2sr Reader