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I need to download all the PDF files present on a site. Trouble is, they aren't listed on any one page, so I need something (a program? a framework?) to crawl the site and download the files, or at least get a list of the files. I tried WinHTTrack, but I couldn't get it to work. DownThemAll for Firefox does not crawl multiple pages or entire sites. I know that there is a solution out there, as I couldn't have possibly been the first person to be presented with this problem. What would you recommend?

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4 Answers 4

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From http://www.go2linux.org/tips-and-tricks-of-wget-to-download-files:

wget -r -A pdf http://www.site.com
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Google has an option to return only files of a certain type. Combine this with the "site" option and you have your "crawler".

Example: http://www.google.com/search?q=site:soliddocuments.com+filetype:pdf

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Use some webcrawling library, eg. in ruby http://www.example-code.com/ruby/spider_begin.asp

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If there are no links to PDF files, a crawler won't help and you basically only have two choices:

  1. Get the list from somewhere else (ask the site's Web Master for a list)
  2. Get the list from WebSite's directory listing. Although, if they have disabled this option on their web server, you won't be able to use it.
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  • 1
    Finally, we meet - hi Pablo ;)
    – miku
    Jul 7, 2010 at 11:59

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