Download PDF as file object without downloading the file with Chrome and Selenium in Python

user_19275283 0
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I am trying to download a PDF with Chromium and Selenium in Python. I am able to download it, if I download it as a file, but is it possible to get it as a string, like I would if it was downloaded with requests? Eg import requests; requests.get(url).content?

My current code is

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("http://www.africau.edu/images/default/sample.pdf")

This opens the pdf, but does not download. I can also do

from selenium import webdriver
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_experimental_option(
    "prefs",
    {
        "download.default_directory": "/home/username/Downloads/",  # Change default directory for downloads
        "download.prompt_for_download": False,  # To auto download the file
        "download.directory_upgrade": True,
        "plugins.always_open_pdf_externally": True,  # It will not show PDF directly in chrome
    },
)
options.add_argument("--headless")
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)
driver.get("http://www.africau.edu/images/default/sample.pdf")

This works, but it downloads a PDF-file to my downloads folder, which means I would need to read it to get the PDF in code. How can I get the pdf without needing to download it as a file first?

selenium-chromedriver selenium-webdriver selenium python
3 Answers

Not clearly getting question but if you want to read the file then just do

import requests
file_url = "http://codex.cs.yale.edu/avi/db-book/db4/slide-dir/ch1-2.pdf"

r = requests.get(file_url, stream = True)
#then open a file to write to py will auto create if not there

for chunk in r.iter_content(chunk_size=1024):
    # do something

OR

You can download the file with request.get then writing it to disk

import requests
file_url = "http://codex.cs.yale.edu/avi/db-book/db4/slide-dir/ch1-2.pdf"

r = requests.get(file_url, stream = True)
#then open a file to write to py will auto create if not there

with open("python.pdf","wb") as pdf:
for chunk in r.iter_content(chunk_size=1024):

     # writing one chunk at a time to a pdf file
     if chunk:
         pdf.write(chunk)
user_127293280

From what you described, I believe the following may achieve your goal:

from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("http://www.africau.edu/images/default/sample.pdf")

# Select all text and copy it using hotkeys
ActionChains(driver).key_down(Keys.CONTROL).send_keys('a').send_keys('c').key_up(Keys.CONTROL).perform()

Then, your desired text is on the clipboard and you can paste it where you like via

ActionChains(driver).key_down(Keys.CONTROL).send_keys('v').key_up(Keys.CONTROL).perform()
user_81630710

You mention, this opens the pdf, but does not download, However in order to decode a PDF file inside a viewer it MUST have been downloaded 1st 100% to the device file storage (disk/chip or otherwise) then been fully decoded into text and pixels then displayed as pixels only, (the text may be in the browser tmp store to be deleted on disconnect).

Most python based systems include pdf tools like poppler-utils so from an OS shell simply run same equivalent of

curl -o "%tmp%\temp.pdf" RemoteURL && pdftotext [options] "%tmp%\temp.pdf" filename.txt

using example above in question If I wish to read on console it looks like this

enter image description here

easier is not view on console just default to sample.txt file using

curl -O http://www.africau.edu/images/default/sample.pdf && pdftotext -nopgbrk -enc UTF-8 -layout sample.pdf
user_108025270
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