How to Convert PDF to Text in .NET (VB)

This sample requires the following dlls from the PDFBox.NET package:

As a reference:

• IKVM.OpenJDK.Core.dll
• IKVM.OpenJDK.SwingAWT.dll
• pdfbox-1.8.9.dll

In addition to these libraries, it is necessary to copy the following files to the application directory:

• commons-logging.dll
• fontbox-1.8.9.dll
• IKVM.OpenJDK.Text.dll
• IKVM.OpenJDK.Util.dll
• IKVM.Runtime.dll

Sample code (VB): 

Private Shared Function parseUsingPDFBox(ByVal input As String) As String
  Dim doc As PDDocument = Nothing

  Try
    doc = PDDocument.load(input)
    Dim stripper As New PDFTextStripper()
    Return stripper.getText(doc)
  Finally
    If doc IsNot Nothing Then
      doc.close()
    End If
  End Try
End Function

See also how to how to convert PDF to text in C# (.NET).