# Accessing PDF Metadata and Page Thumbnails

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-pdf-metadata-and-page-thumbnails/110480>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 26, 2007, 6:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-pdf-metadata-and-page-thumbnails/110480 "2007-07-26T18:34:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ben\_Gribaudo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Ben\_Gribaudo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ben_Gribaudo)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2007, 6:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-pdf-metadata-and-page-thumbnails/110480/1 "2007-07-26T18:34:00Z")

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Hello,

I am putting together a PDF archive of our corporate newsletters. I’d  
like to iterate though a directory of PDFs, read their metadata (title,  
description, etc.) and use this info to dynamically generate a RHTML  
index page. There are several Ruby PDF libraries out there but they seem  
inclined towards creating PDFs instead of reading them. Any  
recommendations on a library to read PDF metadata?

It would be neat to not only read metadata but also to pull the PDF’s  
first page’s thumbnail out as an image. This would allow dynamic  
creation of an index page that looks like this:  
[http://www.reviveourhearts.com/difference/newsletter/newsletter\_archive.php](http://www.reviveourhearts.com/difference/newsletter/newsletter_archive.php)

Any thoughts?

Thanks,  
Ben

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ben\_Gribaudo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Ben\_Gribaudo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ben_Gribaudo)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2007, 1:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/accessing-pdf-metadata-and-page-thumbnails/110480/2 "2007-07-27T13:46:44Z")

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Excerpts from Ben Gribaudo’s message of Thu Jul 26 19:33:32 +0300 2007:

> first page’s thumbnail out as an image. This would allow dynamic  
> creation of an index page that looks like this:  
> [http://www.reviveourhearts.com/difference/newsletter/newsletter\_archive.php](http://www.reviveourhearts.com/difference/newsletter/newsletter_archive.php)
> 
> Any thoughts?  
> Have a look at [http://extractor.rubyforge.org](http://extractor.rubyforge.org) . You need libextractor  
> and its headers to compile it though. Would that work for you?
> 
> Thanks,  
> Ben

–  
Eugen Minciu.

Wasting valuable time since 1985.