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Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::ExtractText - extracts text from documenmts.

NAME  SYNOPSIS  DESCRIPTION  CONFIGURATION  Tools  Metadata 

NAME

ExtractText − extracts text from documenmts.

SYNOPSIS

loadplugin Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::ExtractText

ifplugin Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::ExtractText

extracttext_external pdftotext /usr/bin/pdftotext −nopgbrk −layout −enc UTF−8 {} −
extracttext_use pdftotext .pdf application/pdf
# http://docx2txt.sourceforge.net
extracttext_external docx2txt /usr/bin/docx2txt {} −
extracttext_use docx2txt .docx application/docx
extracttext_external antiword /usr/bin/antiword −t −w 0 −m UTF−8.txt {}
extracttext_use antiword .doc application/(?:vnd\.?)?ms−?word.*
extracttext_external unrtf /usr/bin/unrtf −−nopict {}
extracttext_use unrtf .doc .rtf application/rtf text/rtf
extracttext_external odt2txt /usr/bin/odt2txt −−encoding=UTF−8 {}
extracttext_use odt2txt .odt .ott application/.*?opendocument.*text
extracttext_use odt2txt .sdw .stw application/(?:x−)?soffice application/(?:x−)?starwriter
extracttext_external tesseract {OMP_THREAD_LIMIT=1} /usr/bin/tesseract −c page_separator= {} −
extracttext_use tesseract .jpg .png .bmp .tif .tiff image/(?:jpeg|png|x−ms−bmp|tiff)
# QR−code decoder
extracttext_external zbar /usr/bin/zbarimg −q −D {}
extracttext_use zbar .jpg .png .pdf image/(?:jpeg|png) application/pdf
add_header all ExtractText−Flags _EXTRACTTEXTFLAGS_
header PDF_NO_TEXT X−ExtractText−Flags =˜ /\bpdftotext_NoText\b/
describe PDF_NO_TEXT PDF without text
score PDF_NO_TEXT 0.001
header DOC_NO_TEXT X−ExtractText−Flags =˜ /\b(?:antiword|openxml|unrtf|odt2txt)_NoText\b/
describe DOC_NO_TEXT Document without text
score DOC_NO_TEXT 0.001
header EXTRACTTEXT exists:X−ExtractText−Flags
describe EXTRACTTEXT Email processed by extracttext plugin
score EXTRACTTEXT 0.001

endif

DESCRIPTION

This module uses external tools to extract text from message parts, and then sets the text as the rendered part. External tool must output plain text, not HTML or other non−textual result.

How to extract text is completely configurable, and based on MIME part type and file name.

CONFIGURATION

All configuration lines in user_prefs files will be ignored.
extracttext_maxparts (default: 10)

Configure the maximum mime parts number to analyze, a value of 0 means all mime parts will be analyzed

extracttext_timeout (default: 5 10)

Configure the timeout in seconds of external tool checks, per attachment.

Second argument speficies maximum total time for all checks.

Tools

extracttext_use

Specifies what tool to use for what message parts.

The general syntax is

extracttext_use "name" "specifiers"

name

the internal name of a tool.

specifiers

File extension and regular expressions for file names and MIME types. The regular expressions are anchored to beginning and end.

Examples

extracttext_use antiword .doc application/(?:vnd\.?)?ms−?word.*
extracttext_use openxml .docx .dotx .dotm application/(?:vnd\.?)openxml.*?word.*
extracttext_use openxml .doc .dot application/(?:vnd\.?)?ms−?word.*
extracttext_use unrtf .doc .rtf application/rtf text/rtf
extracttext_external

Defines an external tool. The tool must read a document on standard input or from a file and write text to standard output.

The special keyword "{}" will be substituted at runtime with the temporary filename to be scanned by the external tool.

Environment variables can be defined with "{KEY=VALUE}", these strings will be removed from commandline.

It is required that commandline used outputs result directly to STDOUT.

The general syntax is

extracttext_external "name" "command" "parameters"

name

The internal name of this tool.

command

The full path to the external command to run.

parameters

Parameters for the external command. The temporary file name containing the document will be automatically added as last parameter.

Examples

extracttext_external antiword /usr/bin/antiword −t −w 0 −m UTF−8.txt {} −
extracttext_external unrtf /usr/bin/unrtf −−nopict {}
extracttext_external odt2txt /usr/bin/odt2txt −−encoding=UTF−8 {}

Metadata

The plugin adds some pseudo headers to the message. These headers are seen by the bayes system, and can be used in normal SpamAssassin rules.

The headers are also available as template tags as noted below.

Example

The fictional example headers below are based on a message containing this:
1 A perfectly normal PDF.
2 An OpenXML document with a word document inside. Neither Office
document contains text.

Headers
X−ExtractText−Chars

Tag: _EXTRACTTEXTCHARS_

Contains a count of characters that were extracted.

X−ExtractText−Chars: 10970

X−ExtractText−Words

Tag: _EXTRACTTEXTWORDS_

Contains a count of "words" that were extracted.

X−ExtractText−Chars: 1599

X−ExtractText−Tools

Tag: _EXTRACTTEXTTOOLS_

Contains chains of tools used for extraction.

X−ExtractText−Tools: pdftotext openxml_antiword

X−ExtractText−Types

Tag: _EXTRACTTEXTTYPES_

Contains chains of MIME types for parts found during extraction.

X−ExtractText−Types: application/pdf; application/vnd.openxmlformats−officedocument.wordprocessingml.document, application/ms−word

X−ExtractText−Extensions

Tag: _EXTRACTTEXTEXTENSIONS_

Contains chains of canonicalized file extensions for parts found during extraction.

X−ExtractText−Extensions: pdf docx

X−ExtractText−Flags

Tag: _EXTRACTTEXTFLAGS_

Contains notes from the plugin.

X−ExtractText−Flags: openxml_NoText

X−ExtractText−Uris

Tag: _EXTRACTTEXTURIS_

Contains uris extracted from the plugin.

X−ExtractText−Uris: https://spamassassin.apache.org

Rules

Example:

header PDF_NO_TEXT X−ExtractText−Flags =˜ /\bpdftotext_Notext\b/
describe PDF_NO_TEXT PDF without text


Updated 2026-06-01 - jenkler.se | uex.se