DjVu File Handling on the macOS Command Line with DjVuLibre

About DjVu

DjVu is a web-centric format and software platform for distributing documents and images. DjVu can advantageously replace PDF, PS, TIFF, JPEG, and GIF for distributing scanned documents, digital documents, or high-resolution pictures. DjVu content downloads faster, displays and renders faster, looks nicer on a screen, and consume less client resources than competing formats.

DjVuLibre

DjVuLibre is a popular open-source library and set of tools for working with DjVu files. It provides command-line utilities that allow you to perform various operations on DjVu files.

The DjVuLibre documentation is at times hard to follow, here is an overview of the commands I use most.

Install djvulibre on mac

Prerequisites: we will install djvulibre with the package manager homebrew.

1. Open Terminal.
2. Run brew install djvulibre

Structure and metadata with djvudump

This command displays information about the structure and metadata of a DjVu file.

djvudump <input.djvu>

For example, if you have a DjVu file called “document.djvu” and you want the structure and metadata, the command would look like this:

djvudump document.djvu

You can drag and drop the file into the Terminal to add the correct document path.

Extract text from a DjVu file

To extract text from a DjVu file, you can use the djvutxt command. Here's the basic usage:

djvutxt <input.jvu> <output.txt>

For example, if you have a DjVu file called “document.djvu” and you want to extract the text layer into a file called “text.txt”, the command would look like this:

djvutxt document.jvu text.txt

Additional Resources

djvulibre documentation on Sourceforge