Python Script to extract highlighted text from PDFs. Uses python-poppler-qt4. Updated [1] to Python 3 [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21050551/extracting-text-from-higlighted-text-using-poppler-qt4-python-poppler-qt4

dumppdfcomments.py

import popplerqt4
import sys
import PyQt4


def main():

    doc = popplerqt4.Poppler.Document.load(sys.argv[1])
    total_annotations = 0
    for i in range(doc.numPages()):
        #print("========= PAGE {} =========".format(i+1))
        page = doc.page(i)
        annotations = page.annotations()
        (pwidth, pheight) = (page.pageSize().width(), page.pageSize().height())
        if len(annotations) > 0:
            for annotation in annotations:
                if  isinstance(annotation, popplerqt4.Poppler.Annotation):
                    total_annotations += 1
                    if(isinstance(annotation, popplerqt4.Poppler.HighlightAnnotation)):
                        quads = annotation.highlightQuads()
                        txt = ""
                        for quad in quads:
                            rect = (quad.points[0].x() * pwidth,
                                    quad.points[0].y() * pheight,
                                    quad.points[2].x() * pwidth,
                                    quad.points[2].y() * pheight)
                            bdy = PyQt4.QtCore.QRectF()
                            bdy.setCoords(*rect)
                            txt = txt + str(page.text(bdy)) + ' '

                        #print("========= ANNOTATION =========")
                        print(txt)

    if total_annotations > 0:
        print (str(total_annotations) + " annotation(s) found")
    else:
        print ("no annotations found")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()