PDF Cleaner

Module for easily removing text and other content from a pdf.

npm i @noctuatech/pdf-cleaner

API

This package exposes a small set of functions through the cleaner() initializer which prepares the library and returns the available methods.

All methods operate on a PDF provided as a Uint8Array (or a Node.js Buffer which is compatible) and return a Uint8Array containing the modified PDF bytes.

cleaner()

Initializes the library and returns the PDFDocument class.

import { cleaner } from "@noctuatech/pdf-cleaner";

const PDFCleaner = await cleaner();

PDFDocument.filterOperations

Filters content stream operators according to the provided list and mode (see Mode enum below).

import { cleaner, Mode } from "@noctuatech/pdf-cleaner";
import fs from "node:fs/promises";

const PDFCleaner = await cleaner();

const doc = await PDFCleaner.fromBytes(
  await fs.readFile("./test.pdf")
);

const embeddedImagesRemoved = await doc.filterOperations(
  ["BI", "ID", "EI"],
  Mode.Remove
);

Cleaner.removeText

Removes text drawing operations from the PDF and returns the cleaned PDF bytes.

import { cleaner, Mode } from "@noctuatech/pdf-cleaner";
import fs from "node:fs/promises";

const PDFCleaner = await cleaner();

const doc = await PDFCleaner.fromBytes(
  await fs.readFile("./test.pdf")
);

const documentWithNoText = await doc.removeText();

Cleaner.leaveOnlyText

Keeps only text drawing operators and removes other content.

import { cleaner, Mode } from "@noctuatech/pdf-cleaner";
import fs from "node:fs/promises";

const PDFCleaner = await cleaner();

const doc = await PDFCleaner.fromBytes(
  await fs.readFile("./test.pdf")
);

const documentWithOnlyText = await doc.leaveOnlyText();

Types / enums

The Mode enum has two values:

enum Mode {
  Keep = 0,
  Remove = 1,
}

• Mode.Keep — when used with filterOperations will keep the listed operators and remove others.
• Mode.Remove — will remove the listed operators.