pdfluent 1.0.0b7

Enterprise PDF SDK — render, extract, annotate, sign, and validate PDFs. Pure Rust, zero system dependencies.

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")
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

Feature	Description
Render	Pages to RGBA pixels, PIL Images, or NumPy arrays at any DPI
Text extraction	Plain text or structured TextBlock/TextSpan with position
Text search	Find pages containing a query string
Forms (AcroForm)	Read and fill text, checkbox, and dropdown fields
Annotations	Read existing annotations; add highlights and free-text notes
Redaction	Search-and-redact: black-box all occurrences of a string
Encryption	AES-256 (PDF 2.0) encrypt/decrypt with user + owner passwords
Merge / split	Merge multiple PDFs; split into individual pages (via page slicing)
PDF/A validation	Validate against PDF/A-1B, 2B, 3B with issue-level reporting
Metadata	Read title, author, subject, keywords, creator, producer
Bookmarks	Traverse the document outline tree
Thumbnails	Fast downscaled preview images

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

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)

Module-level functions

Function	Description
open_pdf(path, password=None)	Alias for Document(path)
merge_pdfs(paths, output)	Merge a list of PDFs
validate_pdfa(path) → ComplianceReport	Run PDF/A validation
decrypt_pdf(input, output, password)	Decrypt to a new file

Comparison

	pdfluent	pypdf	pdfminer	pdfplumber	pikepdf
Rendering	✓	–	–	✓ (via pdfminer)	–
Text extraction	✓	✓	✓	✓	–
Form fill	✓	✓	–	–	✓
Redaction	✓	–	–	–	✓
Encryption	✓ (AES-256)	✓	–	–	✓
PDF/A validation	✓	–	–	–	–
Native deps	none	none	none	none	libqpdf
Language	Rust	Python	Python	Python	C++

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.