Poppler Creator & Producer
Understanding PDF metadata that shows Poppler as the Creator or Producer — learn how this essential open-source PDF rendering library processes PDF documents on Linux and Unix systems.
📄 About This PDF Metadata
When you examine a PDF file's properties and see Poppler, cairo, or application names like Evince or Okular as the Producer, it indicates that the document was processed or created using Poppler — a free open-source PDF rendering library that powers most PDF applications on Linux systems.
Sample PDF Metadata from Poppler-based Application:
Title: Project Documentation
Author: Development Team
Creator: Evince Document Viewer
Producer: cairo 1.18.0 (https://cairographics.org)
Creation Date: 2025-01-27 12:00:00
PDF Version: 1.5
Poppler uses Cairo or Splash as rendering backends. When PDFs are modified or created using Poppler-based tools, the Producer field typically shows "cairo" (if using Cairo backend) or may show the application name. The library provides APIs for C++, GLib, Qt5, and Qt6.
PDF Creator
Shows the application name (e.g., Evince, Okular, pdfunite) or the tool that generated or modified the PDF.
PDF Producer
Shows cairo [version] when using Cairo backend, or may show "Poppler" or specific tool names.
📚 What is Poppler?
Poppler is a free and open-source PDF rendering library based on the Xpdf 3.0 codebase. The project was started by Kristian Høgsberg in February 2005 with two main goals: to provide PDF rendering functionality as a shared library (centralizing maintenance effort) and to integrate with modern Unix desktop environments. Poppler is hosted by freedesktop.org and is the standard PDF library on most Linux distributions.
Project Information
| Organization: | freedesktop.org |
| Started By: | Kristian Høgsberg |
| First Released: | March 1, 2005 (v0.1) |
| Based On: | Xpdf 3.0 (Derek Noonburg) |
| Website: | poppler.freedesktop.org |
Technical Details
| Current Version: | 25.11.0 (Nov 2025) |
| Language: | C++ |
| License: | GPL v2 or v3 |
| Platforms: | Linux, macOS, Windows, BSD |
| Backends: | Cairo, Splash |
| APIs: | C++, GLib, Qt5, Qt6 |
Key Features:
PDF Rendering
High-quality PDF rendering with Cairo and Splash backends
ISO 32000-1 Support
Complete PDF 1.7 standard implementation with AcroForms support
Command-Line Tools
poppler-utils: pdfinfo, pdftotext, pdftoppm, pdfunite, and more
⚠️ GPL License Note
Poppler is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), not the LGPL. This means any application using Poppler must also be licensed under the GPL. For commercial/proprietary use, contact Glyph & Cog (Xpdf developers) for commercial licensing options.
⚙️ How Poppler Processes PDFs
Poppler is primarily a PDF rendering and extraction library, not a PDF creator. It reads, renders, and can modify PDF documents:
Rendering Backends:
Cairo Backend
- Anti-aliased vector graphics
- Transparent objects support
- Cross-platform (Wayland, Windows, macOS)
- Ideal for printing and scaling
- Used by Evince (GNOME)
Splash Backend
- Inherited from Xpdf codebase
- Bitmap-based rendering
- Minification filtering for bitmaps
- Better for scanned documents
- Used by Okular (KDE)
Applications Using Poppler:
🛠️ Poppler Command-Line Tools
The poppler-utils package provides command-line utilities for PDF manipulation:
📊 Information & Extraction
pdfinfo | Display PDF metadata and info |
pdftotext | Extract text from PDF |
pdfimages | Extract embedded images |
pdffonts | List fonts used in PDF |
pdfdetach | Extract embedded files |
pdfsig | Verify digital signatures |
🔄 Conversion & Manipulation
pdftoppm | Convert PDF to PPM/PNG/JPEG |
pdftocairo | Convert to PNG/JPEG/PDF/SVG/PS |
pdftops | Convert PDF to PostScript |
pdftohtml | Convert PDF to HTML |
pdfunite | Merge multiple PDFs |
pdfseparate | Extract pages to separate files |
pdfattach | Add attachments to PDF |
📤 How to Use Poppler
Use Poppler's command-line tools to extract information, convert PDFs, and manipulate documents:
Installation:
# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install poppler-utils
# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf install poppler-utils
# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install poppler
# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S poppler
Common Usage Examples:
# View PDF metadata
pdfinfo document.pdf
# Extract text from PDF
pdftotext document.pdf output.txt
# Convert PDF pages to PNG images (150 DPI)
pdftoppm -png -r 150 document.pdf output
# Convert first page to JPEG
pdftoppm -jpeg -f 1 -singlefile document.pdf cover
# Merge multiple PDFs
pdfunite file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf merged.pdf
# Extract pages 5-10 to separate files
pdfseparate -f 5 -l 10 document.pdf page_%d.pdf
# List fonts used in PDF
pdffonts document.pdf
# Extract all images from PDF
pdfimages -png document.pdf images
API Bindings:
Poppler provides stable APIs for different programming environments:
- cpp — Stable C++ API for structure examination and raster rendering
- glib — Stable C API with GLib/GObject idioms, renders to Cairo contexts
- qt5 — Stable C++ API with Qt5 idioms, renders to QPainter/QImage
- qt6 — Stable C++ API with Qt6 idioms
🔍 Understanding PDF Metadata
Poppler can read and modify PDF metadata through its API:
| Metadata Field | API Function (GLib) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Title | poppler_document_get_title() |
Document title |
| Author | poppler_document_get_author() |
Document author |
| Subject | poppler_document_get_subject() |
Document subject |
| Keywords | poppler_document_get_keywords() |
Searchable keywords |
| Creator | poppler_document_get_creator() |
Application that created original document |
| Producer | poppler_document_get_producer() |
Application that converted to PDF |
| Creation Date | poppler_document_get_creation_date_time() |
When the document was created |
| Modification Date | poppler_document_get_modification_date_time() |
When the document was last modified |
Using pdfinfo to View Metadata:
$ pdfinfo document.pdf
Title: Annual Report 2024
Author: Finance Department
Creator: Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365
Producer: Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365
CreationDate: Mon Jan 27 10:30:00 2025
ModDate: Mon Jan 27 14:15:00 2025
Tagged: yes
Pages: 42
Encrypted: no
PDF version: 1.7
Sample Producer Values from Poppler-based Tools:
| Tool/Application | Producer Value |
|---|---|
| pdfunite (merge PDFs) | poppler [version] |
| Evince (print to PDF) | cairo 1.18.0 (https://cairographics.org) |
| pdftocairo | cairo [version] |
| Inkscape (PDF export) | cairo [version] |
| LibreOffice Draw | cairo [version] |
🛠️ Troubleshooting
Common issues when using Poppler:
pdftotext Extracts Garbled Text
Cause: PDF uses custom encoding, embedded fonts without proper mapping, or is a scanned image.
Solution: Check if the PDF contains actual text with pdffonts. If fonts show "Type 3" or no Unicode mapping, text extraction may fail. For scanned documents, you'll need OCR software (like Tesseract) instead. Try pdftotext -layout for better formatting.
pdftoppm Low Quality Output
Cause: Default resolution is 150 DPI, which may be too low for your needs.
Solution: Increase resolution with -r option. For print quality, use pdftoppm -r 300 or higher. For high-quality images: pdftoppm -png -r 300 document.pdf output
Cannot Open Encrypted/Password-Protected PDF
Cause: PDF requires a password to open or extract content.
Solution: Use the -upw (user password) or -opw (owner password) options. Example: pdftotext -upw "password123" document.pdf
pdfunite Creates Large File
Cause: Poppler preserves PDF objects without optimization.
Solution: Poppler's pdfunite doesn't optimize/compress. Use gs (Ghostscript) for compression: gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.pdf
Missing poppler-data (CJK/Cyrillic Text Issues)
Cause: Poppler needs additional encoding data for CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and other non-Latin scripts.
Solution: Install the poppler-data package separately. On Ubuntu: sudo apt install poppler-data. This provides encoding files for proper rendering of CJK and Cyrillic text.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
When a PDF shows "cairo" or "poppler" as the Producer, it means the PDF was processed or created using Poppler, a free open-source PDF rendering library. Poppler uses Cairo as its primary rendering backend, so PDFs created by Poppler-based applications (like Evince's print-to-PDF) typically show "cairo [version]" as the Producer.
Yes, Poppler is free and open source, licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL v2 or v3). However, because it's GPL (not LGPL), any application using Poppler must also be licensed under the GPL. For proprietary/commercial use, you need to contact Glyph & Cog (the Xpdf developers) for commercial licensing options.
Poppler version 0.1 was released on March 1, 2005. The project was started by Kristian Høgsberg in February 2005 as a fork of Xpdf 3.0 (developed by Derek Noonburg of Glyph & Cog, LLC). Poppler is hosted by freedesktop.org and has been actively maintained ever since.
Poppler is a fork of Xpdf 3.0, created to provide PDF rendering as a shared library for easier integration into desktop applications. While Xpdf is a standalone PDF viewer designed to be lightweight with minimal dependencies, Poppler integrates with modern desktop components like fontconfig (font matching) and Cairo (2D rendering). Poppler provides APIs for GLib, Qt, and C++, making it suitable for integration into GNOME and KDE applications.
Poppler is primarily used on Linux systems but is cross-platform. It runs on macOS (via Homebrew or MacPorts), Windows (via MSYS2, Cygwin, or manual builds), and BSD systems. The Cairo backend doesn't depend on X Window System, enabling use on Wayland and other display servers.
Many popular open-source applications use Poppler for PDF rendering: Evince (GNOME document viewer), Okular (KDE document viewer), Inkscape (vector graphics editor), GIMP (image editor, PDF import), LibreOffice Draw (PDF import), Zathura (minimalist PDF viewer), and many more Linux PDF applications.
The name "Poppler" comes from "The Problem with Popplers", an episode of the animated TV series Futurama. This playful naming is common in open-source projects and reflects the fun culture of the freedesktop.org community.
🛠️ Related Tools
PDF Metadata Viewer
Free tool to view PDF metadata including Creator, Producer, and version information.
View PDF Metadata →
📝 Summary: Poppler PDF Metadata
- Started by Kristian Høgsberg (2005)
- Fork of Xpdf 3.0
- Producer shows cairo [version] or poppler
- License: GPL v2 or v3
- freedesktop.org project
- Powers Evince, Okular, and more
- Backends: Cairo and Splash
- APIs: C++, GLib, Qt5, Qt6
- Tools: pdfinfo, pdftotext, pdftoppm
- ISO 32000-1 (PDF 1.7) compliant