pdfluent

Enterprise PDF SDK for Python — built on a pure-Rust stack, zero system dependencies.

Render pages, extract text, fill forms, annotate, redact, encrypt, merge, and validate PDF/A — all from a single pip install.

Installation

pip install pdfluent

# Optional extras
pip install pdfluent[pillow]   # PIL Image support
pip install pdfluent[numpy]    # NumPy array support

Requires Python ≥ 3.8. Pre-built wheels for Linux (x86_64, aarch64), macOS (x86_64, arm64), and Windows (x86_64).

Quick Start

from pdfluent import Document

# Open, inspect, render
with Document("invoice.pdf") as doc:
    print(f"{doc.page_count} pages — {doc.metadata.title}")

    img = doc[0].render(dpi=150)
    img.save("page_0.png")          # requires Pillow

# Extract text
doc = Document("report.pdf")
for page in doc:
    print(page.extract_text())

# Fill a form field and save
doc = Document("form.pdf")
doc.set_form_field("Name", "Jane Doe")
# Multi-select list box: select several options at once
doc.set_multi_select("Languages", ["EN", "NL"])
doc.save("form_filled.pdf")

# Search-and-redact
doc = Document("contract.pdf")
report = doc.redact_text("Confidential")
print(f"Redacted {report.areas_redacted} areas on {report.pages_affected} pages")
doc.save("contract_redacted.pdf")

# PDF/A validation
from pdfluent import validate_pdfa

report = validate_pdfa("archive.pdf")
if report.is_compliant:
    print(f"✓ {report.pdfa_level} compliant")
else:
    for issue in report.issues:
        print(f"[{issue.severity}] {issue.rule}: {issue.message}")

# Merge PDFs
from pdfluent import merge_pdfs
merge_pdfs(["a.pdf", "b.pdf", "c.pdf"], "merged.pdf")

# Encrypt / decrypt
doc = Document("sensitive.pdf")
doc.encrypt("sensitive_enc.pdf", password="s3cr3t")

from pdfluent import decrypt_pdf
decrypt_pdf("sensitive_enc.pdf", "sensitive_dec.pdf", password="s3cr3t")

Features

API Overview

Document(source, password=None)

Opens a PDF from a file path (str) or raw bytes.

doc = Document("file.pdf")             # from path
doc = Document(open("file.pdf","rb").read())  # from bytes
doc = Document("encrypted.pdf", password="pw")

Properties: page_count, metadata, bookmarks
Methods: render_all(dpi), search(query), extract_text(page_num), save(path), get_form_fields(), set_form_field(name, value), get_annotations(page), add_annotation(page, type, rect, content), redact_text(term, page=None), encrypt(path, password), decrypt(path, password)
Protocols: len(doc), doc[0], for page in doc, with Document(...) as doc

AcroForm fill behaviour

set_form_field(name, value) supports text, checkbox, radio, and choice (combo/list) fields. Hierarchical names ("parent.child") are resolved through /Kids recursion. Every call keeps /V, /AS, and /AP consistent so the fill is visible in all PDF viewers without needing /NeedAppearances processing.

doc.set_form_field("Name", "Jane Doe")          # text field
doc.set_form_field("Agree", "On")               # checkbox — pass on-state name
doc.set_form_field("Country", "NL")             # radio group — export value
doc.set_form_field("Category", "Urgent")        # combo / list — option value
doc.save("form_filled.pdf")

Read-only fields raise PdfluentError.

Page

Properties: index, width, height, rotation, geometry
Methods: render(dpi, width, height, background), thumbnail(max_dimension), extract_text(), extract_text_blocks()

RenderedImage

Properties: width, height, pixels (raw RGBA bytes)
Methods: to_pil(), to_numpy(), save(path)

TextSpan

Structured text with position data.

Properties: text, x, y, font_size
G1 font-metadata (Optional): font_name, is_bold, is_italic, color

G1 fields return None in the current release. They are typed as Optional so downstream code handles the None case correctly today and will automatically receive data once the G1 extraction milestone lands.

for block in page.extract_text_blocks():
    for span in block.spans:
        if span.font_name is not None:
            print(f"{span.font_name} {'bold' if span.is_bold else ''}")
        print(f"  '{span.text}' @ ({span.x:.1f}, {span.y:.1f})")

Module-level functions

Exception Hierarchy

Every pdfluent-specific error derives from PdfluentError, so a single except PdfluentError: clause catches all library errors:

from pdfluent import PdfluentError, PdfluentParseError, PdfluentEncryptedError

try:
    with Document("broken.pdf") as doc:
        doc.render_all()
except PdfluentParseError as exc:
    print(f"Not a valid PDF: {exc}")
except PdfluentEncryptedError:
    print("PDF is password-protected")
except PdfluentError as exc:
    print(f"PDF error: {exc}")

Full hierarchy:

PdfluentError                 — base; catch all pdfluent errors
├── PdfluentParseError        — corrupt / non-PDF bytes
├── PdfluentValidationError   — schema / compliance failures
├── PdfluentRenderError       — rendering and XFA flatten failures
├── PdfluentEncryptedError    — operation blocked by encryption
├── PdfluentPageRangeError    — page index out of range
├── PdfluentIoError           — file-system I/O errors
├── PdfluentLicenseError      — invalid / expired license
├── PdfluentGeometryError     — invalid page geometry
└── PdfluentLimitError        — processing-limit exceeded

Typing Support

pdfluent ships with hand-written .pyi stub files for IDE completion and mypy --strict compatibility:

• pdfluent/__init__.pyi — full public API stubs
• pdfluent/_native.pyi — native extension stubs (for mypy without a build)

Verifying with mypy

pip install mypy
cd crates/pdf-python
mypy --strict --python-path python tests/test_pdfluent_typing.py

Example with typed annotations

from __future__ import annotations
from typing import Optional
from pdfluent import Document, TextSpan, PdfluentError

def get_font(span: TextSpan) -> Optional[str]:
    """Return the font name if available."""
    return span.font_name   # Optional[str] — mypy knows this may be None

def safe_open(path: str) -> Optional[Document]:
    try:
        return Document(path)
    except PdfluentError:
        return None

License Activation

from pdfluent import activate_license, LicenseInfo, PdfluentLicenseError

# Activate from a JSON license string or base64-encoded key
try:
    info: LicenseInfo = activate_license(open("my.license").read())
    print(f"{info.tier} license for {info.company} ({info.seats} seats)")
except PdfluentLicenseError as exc:
    print(f"License error: {exc}")

# Or set the environment variable and call with empty string:
# PDFLUENT_LICENSE_KEY="<base64-key>" python myscript.py
info = activate_license("")   # reads PDFLUENT_LICENSE_KEY from env

LicenseInfo fields: licensee, company, tier, expires_at (Unix timestamp), seats.

Comparison

License Activation

The SDK runs in Trial mode by default; output is marked via /Producer metadata. Activate a license to unlock the paid-tier capability set.

import pdfluent

# Activate from a key string
pdfluent.activate_license_key("tier:enterprise")

# Or read the key from a UTF-8 text file
pdfluent.activate_license_file("/path/to/key.lic")

# Inspect the current status (always succeeds; defaults to Trial)
status = pdfluent.license_status()
print(status.tier)              # "Enterprise"
print(status.source)            # "Explicit" | "EnvVar" | "Default"
print(status.output_is_marked)  # False

The PDFLUENT_LICENSE_KEY environment variable is honoured automatically on process start when no explicit activation has happened.

Behavior to be aware of:

• The active tier is process-global and set-once. Re-activating with the same key is a no-op. Re-activating with a different tier raises RuntimeError; restart Python to switch tiers.
• Invalid keys raise ValueError; missing license files raise OSError.
• The key string is never logged or stored beyond the call to activate_license_key.

The 1.0 release accepts the simple evaluation format tier:<name> (trial/developer/team/business/enterprise). Cryptographically signed payloads will be accepted by the same functions in 1.1 without breaking the API.

Building from Source

Requires a Rust toolchain and maturin.

pip install maturin
cd crates/pdf-python
maturin develop --release          # install in current venv
maturin build --release            # build wheel in ./dist/

License

PDFluent Commercial License. See LICENSE.

Links

• Documentation: https://pdfluent.com/docs
• Pricing: https://pdfluent.com/pricing
• PDFluent editor (source-available): https://github.com/pdfluent/pdfluent. The free desktop app this SDK powers.
• Built by Innovation Trigger BV