How to Count the Pages in a PDF File with PHP

PHP provides a range of extensions and functions for getting the number of pages in a PDF document.

Here, we will check out the different methods used for that purpose.

Applying the ImageMagick Extension

The ImageMagick extension of PHP is capable of understanding a PDF document. The underlying command is identify. In PHP, you can count the number of pages using the Imagick::getNumberImages() method.

Note: Ensure the imagick extension is installed and enabled in your PHP environment (e.g., sudo apt install php-imagick on Debian/Ubuntu).

<‌?php
try {
    $imagick = new Imagick('document.pdf');
    $pageCount = $imagick->getNumberImages();
    echo $pageCount;
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo "Error: " . $e->getMessage();
}
?>

Using the TCPDI Class

An alternative method is using the TCPDI class, which is part of the TCPDF library.

So, the code to use is shown below:

php use tcpdi function

<‌?php
require_once 'tcpdf/tcpdi.php'; // Requires TCPDF library

$fileName = 'document.pdf';
$tcpdi = new TCPDI();
$tcpdi->setSourceData((string) file_get_contents($fileName));
$pageCount = $tcpdi->getNumberOfPages();
echo $pageCount;
?>

Note: TCPDI is deprecated in modern TCPDF versions. For current projects, use the standard TCPDF class or a maintained fork. Calling setSourceData() loads the PDF metadata into memory, allowing getNumberOfPages() to read the page count without needing to import or render individual pages.

Using pdfinfo

A faster method for Linux users is pdfinfo. It counts the number of pages in a PDF file quite quickly.

Note that you must install pdfinfo (part of the poppler-utils package) before running the command. On Debian/Ubuntu, run sudo apt install poppler-utils. On Windows, it is available as pdfinfo.exe.

The command to use looks as follows:

php use pdfinfo

<‌?php
$pdfPath = 'document.pdf';
// Use grep to robustly match the Pages line, then extract the number
exec('/usr/bin/pdfinfo ' . escapeshellarg($pdfPath) . ' | grep -i "Pages:" | awk \'{print $2}\'', $output);
$pageCount = (int) ($output[0] ?? 0);
?>

Security Note: Always use escapeshellarg() when passing file paths to exec() to prevent command injection risks. Avoid passing untrusted user input directly to shell commands.

Parsing PDF as a Text File

In this section, you will see the PHP code that gets the number of pages in a PDF document.

Within the code, a function countPdfPages is created that contains the logic.

Within the $path variable, the path of the PDF whose page count should be determined is written.

It is essential to write the correct path.

Here is an example:

php count page numbers of pdf

<‌?php
$path = 'pdf/GFG.pdf';
if (!file_exists($path)) {
    echo "File not found";
    exit;
}
$totalPages = countPdfPages($path);
echo $totalPages;

function countPdfPages($path)
{
  $pdf = file_get_contents($path);
  // Note: This regex works reliably only on uncompressed PDFs.
  // It may fail on compressed, encrypted, or binary-heavy PDFs.
  $number = preg_match_all("/\/Type\s*\/Page\b/", $pdf, $dummy);
  return $number;
}
?>

output of php count page numbers of pdf

4