CAM::PDF can do the geometry part quite nicely, but has some trouble with the string matching sometimes. The technique would be something like the following lightly-tested code:
use CAM::PDF;
my $pdf = CAM::PDF->new('my.pdf') or die $CAM::PDF::errstr;
for my $pagenum (1 .. $pdf->numPages) {
my $pagetree = $pdf->getPageContentTree($pagenum) or die;
my @text = $pagetree->traverse('MyRenderer')->getTextBlocks;
for my $textblock (@text) {
print "text '$textblock->{str}' at ",
"($textblock->{left},$textblock->{bottom})\n";
}
}
package MyRenderer;
use base 'CAM::PDF::GS';
sub new {
my ($pkg, @args) = @_;
my $self = $pkg->SUPER::new(@args);
$self->{refs}->{text} = [];
return $self;
}
sub getTextBlocks {
my ($self) = @_;
return @{$self->{refs}->{text}};
}
sub renderText {
my ($self, $string, $width) = @_;
my ($x, $y) = $self->textToDevice(0,0);
push @{$self->{refs}->{text}}, {
str => $string,
left => $x,
bottom => $y,
right => $x + $width,
#top => $y + ???,
};
return;
}
where the output looks something like this:
text 'E' at (52.08,704.16)
text 'm' at (73.62096,704.16)
text 'p' at (113.58936,704.16)
text 'lo' at (140.49648,704.16)
text 'y' at (181.19904,704.16)
text 'e' at (204.43584,704.16)
text 'e' at (230.93808,704.16)
text ' N' at (257.44032,704.16)
text 'a' at (294.6504,704.16)
text 'm' at (320.772,704.16)
text 'e' at (360.7416,704.16)
text 'Employee Name' at (56.4,124.56)
text 'Employee Title' at (56.4,114.24)
text 'Company Name' at (56.4,103.92)
As you can see from that output, the string matching will be a little tedious, but the geometry is straightforward (except maybe for the font height).
