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