Tony Breyal wrote:
Hi,
Uwe -- ahh, thank you kindly, I was able to do a web search after
reading your post above in order to find a guide on how to set the
path in windows (i wasn't aware that this is how a file is made
avaiable to the system). I haven't got it to work yet, but at least
i'm on the right track! also just after reading your post, i've
discoverd the system() function in R, what wonderful thing that is!
Clair -- I'm still working on getting the files to be accessable to
the system, but in the mean time i have just discovered the system()
function in R which is work around for the moment... so using your
example, you could do:
## R code
system(paste('"C:/Program Files/xpdf/pdftotext.exe"', '"C:/Documents and
Settings/clair/Desktop/test/r-intro.pdf"'), wait=FALSE)
the above will create a new text document in your c:/../test folder.
Now obviously, we want to use the readPDF() function in package: tm.
so on my uni laptop, running windows XP, this is what i have done:
1. Click through: start >> control panel >> system
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Click Environment variables.
4. Click New (under 'system') to add a new variable name and value.
4a. name: pdftotext
4b. value: C:\Program Files\xpdf\pdftotext.exe
5. Click New (under 'system') to add a new variable name and value.
4a. name: pdfinfo
4b. value: C:\Program Files\xpdf\pdfinfo.exe
No, instead of 4 and 5, change the environemnt variable PATH to
PATH
...[all what is already in there]...;C:\Program Files\xpdf
Uwe Ligges
In theory, i think, that should work. however so far it hasn't, so not
quite sure what to do. but at least in the mean time we have the system
() function as a work around. If you can figure out what i'm doing
wrong (probably something obvious knowing me!) please do let me know.
Cheers,
Tony Breyal
On 16 Nov, 18:14, Uwe Ligges <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I never said it *should* work.
I was simply trying something out that works on other types of files
I've needed in the past (eg: html, csv, dat, etc.). I don't know the
details of the pdf format, but I thought it was worth a try, certainly
no harm in experimenting, and hence I learned that pdfs aren't stored
in the same way that other files i've used in the past are. that's
fine, good to learn new things.
As for trying the readPDF() function, yes, I have downloaded and used
xpdf to convert pdfs into plain text since reading the OP email.
However, ow you can make xpdf available to the system so that readPDF
() works in R? i don't know, hence why I posted in this thread.
You clearly seem to have a solution, fancy sharing?
Sure, I thought that could not be a real question:
Set your environment variable PATH so that it additionally points to the
directory where these tools are installed. As you would do for any other
software that is to be called without knowledge where it is installed.
Uwe Ligges
Clair Crossupton xx
On 16 Nov, 12:34, Uwe Ligges <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hello, I was just wondering if you had found a solution? I am having
the same difficulty of converting pdf's into plain text documents in
R. I originally thought I could use the readLines() function, but as
you can see below that did not work.
Why the hell should it? It is designed to read *text* files. And what
you get below is exactly how your PDF file looks like if you read it as
text which it is NOT. Why do you not also go the readPDF() way (and yes,
it is not always possible nor reliable to go that way).
Uwe Ligges
R> my.destfile <- "C:\\Documents and Settings\\clair\\Desktop\\test\\r-
intro.pdf"
R> my.url <- "http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-intro.pdf";
R> download.file(url = my.url, destfile=my.destfile, mode='wb')
R> txt <- readLines(my.destfile)
R> txt
[1]
"%PDF-1.4"
[2]
"%ÐÔÅØ"
[3] "1 0 obj
<<"
[4] "/Length 587
"
[5] "/Filter /
FlateDecode"
[6]
">>"
[7]
"stream"
[8] "xÚmTM [EMAIL PROTECTED]&ÎÁ±?\024tBL\020$ñ°ãd4›½*´.‰\002\001<øï·_•èÌf
\017’W¯_wÕ«îrðãc;Šòê`GæUŠOÛV×&³£øç¾ö\006ƒ¤Ê®\027[vïÖæ6ïWÛ7ñÑTÙÖvb
\030¯“uYt/N¼.³ó5·½êÿ¢¥=\025åS‚<b¸³¿G› "
Warm Regards,
Clair
On 13 Nov, 15:10, Tony Breyal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dear R-Help,
I need to convert a set of '.pdf' files into an equivalent set of
'.txt' files. This is so that i can do some text mining on the
content.
In the latest R-News letter (http://cran.r-project.org/doc/Rnews/
Rnews_2008-2.pdf), the package 'tm' for text mining is mentioned. In
that lovely package, there is a function called 'readPDF()'. In order
to use this, ?readPDF says
"Note that this PDF reader needs both the tools pdftotext and
pdfinfo installed and accessable on your system."
These tools are available fromhttp://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html
I am able to download this and use it easily from a dos window to
convert a pdf file into a txt file.
Question: how do i make these tools available to R, so that i can use
the readPDF() function?
Thank you in advance for any help, and I hope the above made sense.
Tony Breyal
###OS = Windows Vista Ultimate>> sessionInfo()
R version 2.8.0 (2008-10-20)
i386-pc-mingw32
locale:
LC_COLLATE=English_United Kingdom.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United Kingdom.
1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United Kingdom.
1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United Kingdom.1252
attached base packages:
[1] grid stats graphics grDevices utils datasets
methods base
other attached packages:
[1] tm_0.3-1 XML_1.98-1 Snowball_0.0-3
RWeka_0.3-14 rJava_0.6-0 Matrix_0.999375-16
lattice_0.17-15 filehash_2.0
loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] proxy_0.4-1
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and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
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