Create a DisplayList

A DisplayList represents an interpreted document page. Methods for pixmap creation, text extraction and text search are - behind the curtain - all using the page’s display list to perform their tasks. If a page must be rendered several times (e.g. because of changed zoom levels), or if text search and text extraction should both be performed, overhead can be saved, if the display list is created only once and then used for all other tasks.

>>> dl = page.getDisplayList()              # create the display list

You can also create display lists for many pages “on stack” (in a list), may be during document open, or you store it when a page is visited for the first time.

Note, that for everything what follows, only the display list is needed - the corresponding Page object could have been deleted.

Generate Pixmap

The following creates a Pixmap from a DisplayList. Parameters are the same as for Page.getPixMap().

>>> pix = dl.getPixmap()                    # create the page's pixmap

The execution time of this statement may be 20% up to 50% shorter than that of Page.getPixMap().

Perform Text Search

With the display list from above, we can also search for text.

For this we need to create a TextPage.

>>> tp = dl.getTextPage()                    # display list from above
>>> rlist = tp.search("needle")              # look up "needle" locations
>>> for r in rlist:                          # work with found locations:
        pix.invertIRect(r.irect)             # e.g. invert colors in rectangle

Extract Text

With the same TextPage object from above, we can now immediately use any or all of the 5 text extraction methods.

>>> txt  = tp.extractText()                  # plain text format
>>> json = tp.extractJSON()                  # json format
>>> html = tp.extractHTML()                  # HTML format
>>> xml  = tp.extractXML()                   # XML format
>>> xml  = tp.extractXHTML()                 # XHTML format

Further Performance improvements

>>> flags = fitz.TEXT_PRESERVE_LIGATURES | fitz.TEXT_PRESERVE_WHITESPACE
>>> tp = dl.getTextPage(flags)