PDFlib Text Extraction Toolkit (TET) Manual

Constructing TET command lines. The following rules must be observed for constructing
TET command lines:
> Input files will be searched in all directories specified as searchpath.
> Short forms are available for some options, and can be mixed with long options.
> Long options can be abbreviated provided the abbreviation is unique.
> Depending on the encryption status of the input file, a user or master password may
be required for successfully extracting text. It must be supplied with the --password
option. TET will check whether this password is sufficient for text extraction, and
will generate an error if it isn’t.
TET checks the full command line before processing any file. If an error is encountered
in the options anywhere on the command line, no files will be processed at all.
File names. File names which contain blank characters require some special handling
when used with command-line tools like TET. In order to process a file name with blank
characters you should enclose the complete file name with double quote " characters.
Wildcards can be used according to standard practice. For example, *.pdf denotes all files
in a given directory which have a .pdf file name suffix. Note that on some systems case
is significant, while on others it isn’t (i.e., *.pdf may be different from *.PDF). Also note
that on Windows systems wildcards do not work for file names containing blank characters.
Response files. In addition to options supplied directly on the command-line, options
can also be supplied in a response file. The contents of a response file will be inserted in
the command-line at the location where the @filename option was found.
A response file is a simple text file with options and parameters. It must adhere to
the following syntax rules:
> Option values must be separated with whitespace, i.e. space, linefeed, return, or tab.
> Values which contain whitespace must be enclosed with double quotation marks: "
> Double quotation marks at the beginning and end of a value will be omitted.
> A double quotation mark must be masked with a backslash to use it literally: \"
> A backslash character must be masked with another backslash to use it literally: \\
Response files can be nested, i.e. the @filename syntax can itself be used in a response
file.
Exit codes. The TET command-line tool returns with an exit code which can be used to
check whether or not the requested operations could be successfully carried out:
> Exit code 0: all command-line options could be successfully and fully processed.
> Exit code 1: one or more file processing errors occurred, but processing continued.
> Exit code 2: some error was found in the command-line options. Processing stopped
at the particular bad option, and no input file has been processed.
2.1 Command-Line Options 17