Copying

This refers to opening a document and then saving it to a new file. This test measures the speed of reading a PDF and re-writing as a new PDF. This process is also at the core of functions like merging / joining multiple documents. The numbers below therefore apply to PDF joining and merging.

The results for all 7,031 pages are:

600

500

400

300

200

100

⏱

seconds

3.05

10.54

33.57

494.04

PyMuPDF

PDFrw

PikePDF

PyPDF2

fastest

←

←

slowest

Text Extraction

This refers to extracting simple, plain text from every page of the document and storing it in a text file.

The results for all 7,031 pages are:

400

300

200

100

⏱

seconds

8.01

27.42

101.64

227.27

PyMuPDF

XPDF

PyPDF2

PDFMiner

fastest

←

←

slowest

Rendering

This refers to making an image (like PNG) from every page of a document at a given DPI resolution. This feature is the basis for displaying a document in a GUI window.

The results for all 7,031 pages are:

1000

800

600

400

200

⏱

seconds

367.04

646

851.52

PyMuPDF

XPDF

PDF2JPG

fastest

←

slowest