Where does MuPDF's mutools put the image files it extracts? The official documentation says "The image and font files will be saved out to the same folder which the file originates from." However, I've run several successful extractions with no such result.
By the way, pardon if this fits the definition of "non-programming question", but the official web site for MuPDF support (https://artifex.com/support/open-source/) says, "If you are using an AGPL licensed version of MuPDF, we recommend exploring . . . Stack Overflow: This website has a small but active community involved with MuPDF, as well as PDF. Questions raised here will often get a good response." And their link is to the main Stack Overflow site, right here, not a subsidiary site like SuperUsers. So I'm going to assume that I'm in the right place. If not, please blame MuPDF for sending me here.
My command line looks like this...
mutools extract -r PATHtoPDF
...with the intent of extracting all images. On some PDFs it errors out with messages about garbage, but on others it will give me a long list of short lines, e.g. extracting image img-150.png extracting image img-151.png extracting image img-152.png ...etc., and then a list of fonts it also seems to be extracting. Then mutools stops--and though there is no error message, I see nothing. No files in the directory the PDF is in (which is where the documentation said they'd be), no files in the MuPDF directory where mutools is, no files in my Windows Documents directory, and I can't think of anywhere else they'd logically be (except maybe Windows Downloads, but no luck there either). The -help only gives -r and -p as options; there's no mention of a path for output. I did type an output path right after PATHtoPDF once, but mutools errored out without doing anything, so clearly that's not the way to go and I assumed that files would be placed in the MuPDF directory where mutools is. By now I've done several tests, so somewhere--if mutools output wasn't lying to me--I've got a whole bunch of image files floating around. My system is logically arranged but complex and large with five different big fixed disks full of data; a search of the whole thing would take hours.
By the way, I'm a noob Windows MuPDF user, not a programmer and have no idea how to compile windows binaries. Therefore the only useable MuPDF I found was here (https://mupdf.en.lo4d.com/download) which is 1.19, a bit old now, but I'm assuming it should still be serviceable. If it makes a difference, the system I'm doing this on is also old but still serviceable: Win7.
OK, this is very strange. After reading K J's responses (thanks, K J), I did a few additional experiments based on K J's testing recommendations. I found that under some circumstances MuPDF Mutool will do what it's supposed to, and under others it will not. viz:
Here is the actual command line that produces a list of results in the command-prompt window but doesn't actually extract any images:
In this case, the command-line window I'm working with is the one from the Windows Start Menu--go to the start menu, drill down to Windows Accessories, find "Command Prompt" and click it. Then paste in my command prompt and press Enter. The command-prompt window will seem like it's working, but as I said before, no images are actually extracted.
HOWEVER, guess what? Start a command prompt from inside the window that contains the PDF (highlight folder, Shift-right click), which is
H:\_WorkingProjects\ebooks\_XtractImgs, Then paste the EXACT SAME COMMAND LINE onto the prompt -- and it works. Images and fonts are extracted.Downright weird.