Winking PDF Analyzer

Exploring a PDF file’s contents is certainly something more suited for a more experienced audience, but nevertheless, those looking to peer into the intricacies of what makes a PDF document have software solutions they can rely upon.

One such solution comes in the form of Winking PDF Analyzer, whose name is indicative of the workflows users can expect from such a program: examine a PDF document’s metadata in detail, thoroughly analyze its internal structure, and extract all of its images into a specified directory.

First off, it’s worth noting that analyzing a PDF document’s internal structure isn’t necessarily something a casual user would do. There are lots of technicalities involved, and you need to know what to look for. Even so, when used effectively, such tools can help you understand the difference between safe and unsafe PDFs, finding what’s been tampered with, and so on.

Users can start by looking at some more general data about their chosen document, such as its title and author, the program that was used to create it, and the fonts that were used. You can also preview the selected document and render it to a specific size within the app as well.

A useful functionality that copies all the text on a page is present under the Text menu. The program states that it is not OCR, but I found it worked decently to extract text from a document filled with images.

The program will generate a cross-reference table, tree structure, and corresponding layers for the inserted PDF. Users will appreciate the tree-based view the program uses to display a document’s structure, which makes the process of finding certain data more convenient. Streams can be inspected in ASCII or HEX formats, and there are different page modes for easier viewing.

There’s also the app’s ability to dump a document’s images to a folder. Note that all detected pictures will be exported, so I’d recommend creating a new folder just for that.

Winking PDF Analyzer gives users a reliable way to explore the complexity of PDF files. Though there’s certainly a learning curve to deciphering the information on display, it’s appreciated that the program is ultimately easy to maneuver.