There are several tools in python for getting information out of PDFs. In this case I visited the Cencoex page; in the Cencoex in figures section there is a link to a pdf, Settlements to Associated Companies of the Health Sector (Ordinary + ALADI + SUCRE) (broken link).
For this first article pycurl will be used to download the pdf and peepdf (broken link) to analyze it. To download peepdf you can go to the project's repository on github.
pycurl is installed with pip or with apt-get on Debian.
Download peepdf:
git clone https://github.com/jesparza/peepdf.gitTo download the file, run the code below, which downloads the pdf file and saves it as salud.pdf:
import pycurl
with open('salud.pdf', 'wb') as f:
c = pycurl.Curl()
c.setopt(c.URL, 'http://www.cencoex.gob.ve/images/stories/pdfs/estadisticas/Salud.pdf')
c.setopt(c.WRITEDATA, f)
c.perform()
c.close()In the application directory run (option -f for the file and -i for interactive mode:
./peepdf.py -f ../salud.pdf -iAnd it returns:
File: salud.pdf
MD5: e639fca504182dc5cb383cc455d30c21
SHA1: 2c29f4a20e4e0b6a3c10decbfacced991e59ad79
SHA256: 9a4d3d48f060d1fa29fe9cb5e7a435643586e9871e62254839daf3fd87e45506
Size: 57611 bytes
Version: 1.3
Binary: True
Linearized: False
Encrypted: False
Updates: 0
Objects: 34
Streams: 7
Comments: 0
Errors: 0
Version 0:
Catalog: 1
Info: 2
Objects (34): [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34]
Streams (7): [10, 33, 32, 5, 15, 21, 27]
Encoded (7): [10, 33, 32, 5, 15, 21, 27]The tree command returns the logical structure of the file:
PPDF> tree
/Catalog (1)
/Pages (3)
/Page (4)
/Pages (3)
stream (5)
integer (6)
Unknown (0)
/Catalog (1)
/R10 (12)
stream (10)
/R7 (11)
/ExtGState (7)
/R8 (13)
/Font (8)
/Encoding (34)
/FontDescriptor (9)
stream (32)
stream (33)
/Page (14)
/Pages (3)
stream (15)
integer (16)
Unknown (0)
/Catalog (1)
/R10 (18)
stream (10)
/R7 (17)
/ExtGState (7)
/R8 (19)
/Font (8)
/Page (20)
/Pages (3)
stream (21)
integer (22)
Unknown (0)
/Catalog (1)
/R10 (24)
stream (10)
/R7 (23)
/ExtGState (7)
/R8 (25)
/Font (8)
/Page (26)
/Pages (3)
stream (27)
integer (28)
Unknown (0)
/Catalog (1)
/R10 (30)
stream (10)
/R7 (29)
/ExtGState (7)
/R8 (31)
/Font (8)
/Info (2)To see the physical structure, use the offsets command:
PPDF> offsets
0 Header
15
Object 5 (8865)
8879
8881
Object 6 (19)
8899
8901
Object 15 (9005)
17905
17907
Object 16 (20)
17926
17928
Object 21 (8618)
26545
26547
Object 22 (20)
26566
26568
Object 27 (6554)
33121
33123
Object 28 (20)
33142
33144
Object 4 (189)
33332
33334
Object 14 (191)
33524
33526
Object 20 (191)
33716
33718
Object 26 (191)
33908
33910
Object 3 (88)
33997
33999
Object 1 (47)
34045
34047
Object 7 (40)
34086
34088
Object 11 (29)
34116
34118
Object 12 (31)
34148
34150
Object 10 (4140)
38289
38291
Object 13 (29)
38319
38321
Object 17 (29)
38349
38351
Object 18 (31)
38381
38383
Object 19 (29)
38411
38413
Object 23 (29)
38441
38443
Object 24 (31)
38473
38475
Object 25 (29)
38503
38505
Object 29 (29)
38533
38535
Object 30 (31)
38565
38567
Object 31 (29)
38595
38597
Object 33 (614)
39210
39212
Object 8 (436)
39647
39649
Object 34 (408)
40056
40058
Object 9 (204)
40261
40263
Object 32 (16249)
56511
56513
Object 2 (243)
56755
56757
Xref Section (709)
57465
57467
Trailer (138)
57604
57605 EOFTo see the pdf's metadata, run metadata:
PPDF> metadata
Info Object in version 0:
<< /ModDate D:20140908210848+04'-30'
/CreationDate D:20140908210848+04'-30'
/Producer Nitro PDF PrimoPDF
/Title LIQUIDACIONES DEL 1 ENERO AL 5 DE SEPTIEMBRE 2014.xls
/Creator PrimoPDF http://www.primopdf.com
/Author lrojas >>The file's creation date is 09-08-2014 and the time is 21:08:48 Venezuela time. The file's title is Liquidaciones del 1 enero al 5 de septiembre de 2014 (Settlements from January 1 to September 5, 2014), and ah, it is an excel xls file. They used primopdf to generate the pdf, and finally the author of the pdf is lrojas.
If you want to inspect object 2:
PPDF> object 2
<< /ModDate D:20140908210848+04'-30'
/CreationDate D:20140908210848+04'-30'
/Producer Nitro PDF PrimoPDF
/Title LIQUIDACIONES DEL 1 ENERO AL 5 DE SEPTIEMBRE 2014.xls
/Creator PrimoPDF http://www.primopdf.com
/Author lrojas >>It is the one that contains the metadata information.
Inspecting object 15 gives:
432 1739.33 3991 6 re
f
432 1642.33 3991 6 re
f
432 1545.33 3991 6 re
f
432 1448.33 3991 6 re
f
432 1351.33 3991 6 re
f
432 1254.33 3991 6 re
f
432 1157.33 3991 6 re
f
432 1060.33 3991 6 re
f
432 963.332 3991 6 re
f
432 866.332 3991 6 re
f
432 769.332 3991 6 re
f
432 672.332 3991 6 reOr using rawstream:
rawstream 15
50 9f fa 71 0f 29 76 8a bc 44 3e dd c6 15 84 9e öP..q.)v..D>.....ö
4c 89 76 f6 75 8c 3d 23 65 11 fb 65 48 d1 0e a1 öL.v.u.=#e..eH...ö
37 f6 08 d3 b6 f8 d2 17 15 4a 76 29 b0 04 86 e1 ö7........Jv)....ö
b4 9e 9b 3a 34 e7 d1 ce 91 9a c9 c0 91 9e cc 6c ö...:4..........lö
4a 5d 24 67 c7 aa 21 fe 2c ea e6 ea 9e 8d 95 33 öJÅ$g..!.,......3ö
61 e5 55 2c 13 3c cd 61 21 d1 26 03 47 ba 32 b3 öa.U,.<.a!.&.G.2.ö
09 da cc ce 8e da e4 61 a1 85 34 d6 ba 00 63 5c ö.......a..4...cÖö
08 f1 63 34 7a 90 44 cb 79 4d 95 50 58 6c e7 55 ö..c4z.D.yM.PXl.Uö
74 d4 da fb 44 4c 8a 48 a8 ae 41 42 b1 e5 44 a8 öt...DL.H..AB..D.ö
e9 bb 42 bb 47 28 3b cd 5e 22 0f 5d 3b 42 e8 d9 ö..B.G(;.Ü".Å;B..ö
e4 68 93 af 5f ec 99 50 8b d8 7f 03 08 05 8b 04 ö.h.._..P......ö
f5 a3 48 d5 bc 7b 7d 97 33 80 d8 c6 f6 85 57 90 ö..H..äå.3.....W.ö
4b 6a 8c 50 15 17 e4 e2 3a ca ce 7e 55 46 e4 5a öKj.P....:..üUF.Zö
d4 d9 d5 eb 7d 70 a0 fb d6 a0 98 7d 3e 8f d9 72 ö....åp.....å>..rö
12 6d 08 55 71 41 2e 79 12 93 b3 9f 36 d4 72 5a ö.m.UqA.y....6.rZö
68 a3 40 78 6b 9a 72 79 8c e9 6e 67 6c b9 cb ce öh.@xk.ry..ngl...ö
9a 4b 4d ec f8 02 e7 f3 3e fa f8 f8 cd 2f 6e 7e ö.KM.....>..../nüö
79 d3 c5 a0 96 4f 37 9d f1 46 3b 8e ea 1b 4d 13 öy....O7..F;...M.ö
7a fd 8d c9 ae fb 3e 4d 16 4c 7d e1 e9 63 a1 bc öz.....>M.Lå..c..ö
eb 47 b5 bc 1d a2 5a de 0c ad 5a 5e 0f 83 5a 1e ö.G....Z...ZÜ..Z.ö
c7 a0 96 d3 21 d8 ab 72 3a 16 77 5d 9e 4f a7 3c ö....!..r:.wÅ.O.<ö
2f 2f 07 c1 ad ca e9 64 a7 55 39 9d eb b2 2a a7 ö//.....d.U9...*.ö
d3 1c 56 e5 b4 01 fb aa 9c 36 37 5e 95 d3 fe 9c ö..V......67Ü....ö
ab 72 da b9 6e 55 4e fb 48 ad ca 69 57 96 f3 f2 ö.r..nUN.H..iW...ö
b2 af c0 aa 9c d6 e9 ae ca 69 85 dd aa 9c 96 b5 ö.........i......ö
ac ca 29 b9 7c 55 4e f9 9b ab 72 ca c2 5a 95 53 ö..).öUN...r..Z.Sö
8e c2 aa 9c a6 b4 56 e5 34 5a 7b 5e 5e 06 75 ce ö......V.4ZäÜÜ.u.ö
cb 4b 1f ec bc bc b4 8d ce cb 0b 79 b0 fc 47 37 ö.K.........y..G7ö
ff 07 29 f1 43 c1 ö..).C.öOne of the problems with analyzing pdfs generated by the APN in Venezuela is that they are not generated from information taken directly from the databases; instead they use a spreadsheet, in this case on windows with Microsoft Office's, and generate the pdf with windows tools.
Will the information in the pdf be authentic after being manipulated with several tools?
In following posts I will keep trying different tools in Python to see if I can manage a decent pdfscraping of the Cencoex pdf.
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