Python Import No Module Named error

Question

I pip installed pdfminer: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pdfminer/20140328 on ubuntu 13.10 and that successfully installed into /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pdfminer

when I try to run the example code:

from pdfminer.pdfparser import PDFParser
from pdfminer.pdfdocument import PDFDocument
from pdfminer.pdfpage import PDFPage
from pdfminer.pdfpage import PDFTextExtractionNotAllowed
from pdfminer.pdfinterp import PDFResourceManager
from pdfminer.pdfinterp import PDFPageInterpreter
from pdfminer.pdfdevice import PDFDevice


if __name__=='__main__':
    # Open a PDF file.
    fp = open('MyPDF.pdf', 'rb')

I keep getting

ImportError: No module named pdfparser

I have verified that pdfparser exists and there is a __init__.py file in the pdfminer folder. I have tried recreating the __init__.py file. I have also tried runing chmod -R 777 pdfminer but that doesn't fix it either.

I have run env but there is no PYTHONPATH there is that a problem? I have also tried installing PDFMiner into a virtualenv but that doesn't work either. I noticed that PDFMiner requires root permissions to install is that the problem?

what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Have you tried

from pdfminer import pdfparser

or

import pdfminer.pdfparser

?

Answer 2

Are you running the code from a file called pdfminer.py?

This was causing the error in my case. Python was trying to import the module from the file of the same name.