Scan PDFs and local files
What this guide covers
Oobee scans an HTML file or a PDF file on your computer with the local file scan type. It can also scan the PDF files that a website or sitemap links to. Oobee checks PDFs with VeraPDF and checks HTML files with the same engine it uses for web pages. This guide covers file paths, the file types option and the limits of PDF scans.
Prerequisites
- Oobee installed. Refer to Install the portable Oobee or Install Oobee manually.
- VeraPDF available to Oobee for PDF scans. The portable Oobee includes it.
- The path to the file on your computer.
Step 1: Scan a local file
Use scan type localfile and give the file path with -u. Oobee accepts an absolute or relative path, or a file:// URL.
npm run cli -- -c localfile -u <FILE_PATH> -i all -k "<YOUR_NAME>:<YOUR_EMAIL>"Add -i all or -i pdf-only when the file is a PDF. The default file type, html-only, rejects a PDF with the message “Uploaded file format is incorrect. Please upload a HTML, PDF, XML or TXT file.”
Oobee scans one HTML or PDF file per local file scan. If the path points to a file that ends in .xml or .txt, Oobee reads it as a sitemap and scans the pages it lists.
Step 2: Include PDFs in a website or sitemap scan
By default, Oobee scans HTML pages only. To scan the PDF files that Oobee finds while crawling, set the file types option -i:
| Value | Effect |
|---|---|
html-only |
Scan HTML pages only. This is the default. |
all |
Scan HTML pages and PDF files. |
pdf-only |
Scan PDF files only. |
npm run cli -- -c intelligent -u <WEBSITE_URL> -i all -k "<YOUR_NAME>:<YOUR_EMAIL>"The interactive npm start mode scans both HTML and PDF files.
Step 3: Read the PDF results
PDF issues appear in the same reports as web page issues, under the PDF file’s name. Oobee omits Level AAA PDF rules and a small set of excluded VeraPDF rules. Refer to Scan report files for the report layout.
Constraints and limitations
| Constraint | Detail |
|---|---|
| VeraPDF | PDF scans need the verapdf executable. If Oobee cannot find it, it logs “Could not find veraPDF executable”. |
| Valid PDFs | Oobee scans a file as a PDF only if it starts with %PDF- and contains %%EOF near its end. |
| Download size | Oobee downloads at most four PDFs at a time. A single PDF over 100 MB is not downloaded unless you raise OOBEE_PDF_MAX_DOWNLOAD_BYTES. |
| File types | A local file scan accepts HTML, PDF, .xml and .txt files. Other types are rejected. |
| Strategy | -s is not available for local file scans. |
Related content
- Run a scan — scan types and shared options.
- CLI options, environment variables and error codes —
-i, error codes 19 to 21 andOOBEE_PDF_MAX_DOWNLOAD_BYTES. - Troubleshooting — fix PDF and local file errors.
