rt_read_pdf: Convert a PDF file to text.

In rtransparency: Identifies Indicators of Transparency

Convert a PDF file to text.

Description

Takes a path to a PDF file and returns its text content as a single character string, extracted with the poppler 'pdftotext' utility (the same extractor the original 'oddpub' package relied on, implemented here as a standard system call). Different extractors format text differently; the detectors in this package were tuned to the layout 'pdftotext' produces. To analyze the result with the plain-text detectors, write it to a '.txt' file first (see Examples).

Usage

rt_read_pdf(filepath)

Arguments

filepath

The path to the PDF file as a string (must end in '.pdf').

Value

A character string with the extracted text.

Examples

## Not run: 
# Path to a PDF file.
pdf_path <- system.file(
  "extdata", "PMID32171256-PMC7071725.pdf", package = "rtransparency"
)

# Extract the text, write it to a TXT file, then run the detectors.
article_txt <- rt_read_pdf(pdf_path)
writeLines(article_txt, "article.txt")
rt_coi("article.txt")

## End(Not run)

rtransparency documentation built on July 1, 2026, 9:07 a.m.