[Bug]: Text extraction interleaves columns in multi-column (two-column) PDF layouts

[yllumi]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues and found no similar reports

Are you using the latest version of this package?

• The issue I'm reporting exists in the latest release

Can other PDF readers read the file?

• The PDF I'm trying to read opens correctly in at least one other PDF reader

When running this snippet

$document = (new PdfParser())->parseFile('/path/to/file.pdf');

I run into the following issue/exception (Please attach the pdf)

Hi there!

First of all, thank you for maintaining this library. I encountered an issue when parsing PDF files that have a two-column text layout.

When extracting text from a PDF with two columns, the parser fails to read down the first column completely before moving to the second one. Instead, it interleaves (mixes up) the text from Column 1 and Column 2 line-by-line or section-by-section.

This results in a scrambled text output where sentences from both columns are merged together.

Interestingly, the smalot/pdfparser package handles this specific two-column layout correctly and preserves the correct reading order. I am hoping we can achieve similar layout-aware parsing in this package.

two-column.pdf

Do you allow attachment files to be used in tests to prevent regressions?

• Yes, I give permission to use this file as a test file to prevent future regressions (And am authorized to give this permission)

[PrinsFrank]

Hey, thanks for using this library! I'm currently working on multi-column extraction to provide table support and even markdown extraction. It's a quite complicated task, but it will be here soon! I'll keep you updated!