Extract highlighted text

[joelostblom]

Is it possible to extract highlighted text using PyPDF2? I currently able to extract the content of popups/sticky notes and my own comments on higlighted text areas, but I cannot find a way to extract the highlighted text from the PDF.

This is what I have tried, I suspect I could use the QuatPoints or Rect attributes to extract a region from the page, but I could not get p2.extractText() to work at all so not sure how to proceed.

import PyPDF2 as pp2

pdf_file = open('sample.pdf', 'rb')
pdf = pp2.PdfFileReader(pdf_file)
p2 = pdf.getPage(2)
p2['/Annots'][4].getObject()

Out:

    {'/Type'{'/Type': '/Annot',
     '/Subtype': '/Highlight',
     '/Subj':'Highlight',
     '/T': 'joel',
     '/F': 4,
     '/NM': 'b3a6d3a3-bdab-457b-a769-9d82e616798a',
     '/CreationDate': 'D:20190704104139',
     '/CA': 1,
     '/Rect': [58.9415, 184.958, 550.855, 235.086],
     '/C': [0.99608, 0.99608, 0.68235],
     '/QuadPoints': [430.769,
      219.662,
      550.304,
      219.662,
      430.769,
      235.086,
      550.304,
      235.086,
      58.9415,
      202.585,
      531.575,
      202.585,
      58.9415,
      218.56,
      531.575,
      218.56,
      59.4924,
      185.509,
      313.437,
      185.509,
      59.4924,
      201.483,
      313.437,
      201.483],
     '/AP': {'/N': {'/Subtype': '/Form',
       '/FormType': 1,
       '/BBox': [0, 0, 491.914, 50.1278],
       '/Resources': {'/ExtGState': {'/TransGs': {'/CA': 1,
          '/ca': 1,
          '/BM': '/Multiply',
          '/Type': '/ExtGState'}}},
       '/Group': {'/S': '/Transparency', '/Type': '/Group'},
       '/Filter': '/FlateDecode'}},
     '/M': "D:20190704104139+00'00'",
     '/Contents': 'sample text written on highlighted area'}