PDF Processing Guide

Overview

This guide covers essential PDF processing operations using Python libraries and command-line tools. For advanced features, JavaScript libraries, and detailed examples, see REFERENCE.md. If you need to fill out a PDF form, read FORMS.md and follow its instructions.

Assume the skill directory itself is the working directory when running bundled files from this skill.

Quick CLI (legacy doc_utils)

This skill bundles a simple CLI (doc_utils.py ) copied from the older pdf skill, so you can do common PDF operations quickly.

Read PDF → JSON

python3 ./doc_utils.py read path/to/file.pdf

Merge PDFs

python3 ./doc_utils.py merge merged.pdf a.pdf b.pdf

Optional deps install helper (Python-only, no system packages):

bash ./install.sh

Quick Start

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

Read a PDF

reader = PdfReader("document.pdf") print(f"Pages: {len(reader.pages)}")

Extract text

text = "" for page in reader.pages: text += page.extract_text()

Python Libraries

pypdf - Basic Operations

Merge PDFs

from pypdf import PdfWriter, PdfReader

writer = PdfWriter() for pdf_file in ["doc1.pdf", "doc2.pdf", "doc3.pdf"]: reader = PdfReader(pdf_file) for page in reader.pages: writer.add_page(page)

with open("merged.pdf", "wb") as output: writer.write(output)

Split PDF

reader = PdfReader("input.pdf") for i, page in enumerate(reader.pages): writer = PdfWriter() writer.add_page(page) with open(f"page_{i+1}.pdf", "wb") as output: writer.write(output)

Extract Metadata

reader = PdfReader("document.pdf") meta = reader.metadata print(f"Title: {meta.title}") print(f"Author: {meta.author}") print(f"Subject: {meta.subject}") print(f"Creator: {meta.creator}")

Rotate Pages

reader = PdfReader("input.pdf") writer = PdfWriter()

page = reader.pages[0] page.rotate(90) # Rotate 90 degrees clockwise writer.add_page(page)

with open("rotated.pdf", "wb") as output: writer.write(output)

pdfplumber - Text and Table Extraction

Extract Text with Layout

import pdfplumber

with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf: for page in pdf.pages: text = page.extract_text() print(text)

Extract Tables

with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf: for i, page in enumerate(pdf.pages): tables = page.extract_tables() for j, table in enumerate(tables): print(f"Table {j+1} on page {i+1}:") for row in table: print(row)

Advanced Table Extraction

import pandas as pd

with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf: all_tables = [] for page in pdf.pages: tables = page.extract_tables() for table in tables: if table: # Check if table is not empty df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0]) all_tables.append(df)

Combine all tables

if all_tables: combined_df = pd.concat(all_tables, ignore_index=True) combined_df.to_excel("extracted_tables.xlsx", index=False)

reportlab - Create PDFs

Basic PDF Creation

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas

c = canvas.Canvas("hello.pdf", pagesize=letter) width, height = letter

Add text

c.drawString(100, height - 100, "Hello World!") c.drawString(100, height - 120, "This is a PDF created with reportlab")

Add a line

c.line(100, height - 140, 400, height - 140)

Save

c.save()

Create PDF with Multiple Pages

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Spacer, PageBreak from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet

doc = SimpleDocTemplate("report.pdf", pagesize=letter) styles = getSampleStyleSheet() story = []

Add content

title = Paragraph("Report Title", styles['Title']) story.append(title) story.append(Spacer(1, 12))

body = Paragraph("This is the body of the report. " * 20, styles['Normal']) story.append(body) story.append(PageBreak())

Page 2

story.append(Paragraph("Page 2", styles['Heading1'])) story.append(Paragraph("Content for page 2", styles['Normal']))

Build PDF

doc.build(story)

Subscripts and Superscripts

IMPORTANT: Never use Unicode subscript/superscript characters directly in ReportLab output. Built-in fonts often miss those glyphs and render black boxes.

Use ReportLab markup in Paragraph objects instead:

from reportlab.platypus import Paragraph from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet

styles = getSampleStyleSheet()

chemical = Paragraph("H₂O", styles["Normal"]) squared = Paragraph("x<super>2</super> + y<super>2</super>", styles["Normal"])

Command-Line Tools

pdftotext (poppler-utils)

Extract text

pdftotext input.pdf output.txt

Extract text preserving layout

pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt

Extract specific pages

pdftotext -f 1 -l 5 input.pdf output.txt # Pages 1-5

qpdf

Merge PDFs

qpdf --empty --pages file1.pdf file2.pdf -- merged.pdf

Split pages

qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- pages1-5.pdf qpdf input.pdf --pages . 6-10 -- pages6-10.pdf

Rotate pages

qpdf input.pdf output.pdf --rotate=+90:1 # Rotate page 1 by 90 degrees

Remove password

qpdf --password=mypassword --decrypt encrypted.pdf decrypted.pdf

pdftk (if available)

Merge

pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf cat output merged.pdf

Split

pdftk input.pdf burst

Rotate

pdftk input.pdf rotate 1east output rotated.pdf

Common Tasks

Extract Text from Scanned PDFs

Requires: pip install pytesseract pdf2image

import pytesseract from pdf2image import convert_from_path

Convert PDF to images

images = convert_from_path('scanned.pdf')

OCR each page

text = "" for i, image in enumerate(images): text += f"Page {i+1}:\n" text += pytesseract.image_to_string(image) text += "\n\n"

print(text)

Add Watermark

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

Create watermark (or load existing)

watermark = PdfReader("watermark.pdf").pages[0]

Apply to all pages

reader = PdfReader("document.pdf") writer = PdfWriter()

for page in reader.pages: page.merge_page(watermark) writer.add_page(page)

with open("watermarked.pdf", "wb") as output: writer.write(output)

Extract Images

Using pdfimages (poppler-utils)

pdfimages -j input.pdf output_prefix

This extracts all images as output_prefix-000.jpg, output_prefix-001.jpg, etc.

Password Protection

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

reader = PdfReader("input.pdf") writer = PdfWriter()

for page in reader.pages: writer.add_page(page)

Add password

writer.encrypt("userpassword", "ownerpassword")

with open("encrypted.pdf", "wb") as output: writer.write(output)

Quick Reference

Task Best Tool Command/Code

Merge PDFs pypdf writer.add_page(page)

Split PDFs pypdf One page per file

Extract text pdfplumber page.extract_text()

Extract tables pdfplumber page.extract_tables()

Create PDFs reportlab Canvas or Platypus

Command line merge qpdf qpdf --empty --pages ...

OCR scanned PDFs pytesseract Convert to image first

Fill PDF forms pdf-lib or pypdf (see FORMS.md) See FORMS.md

Next Steps

• For advanced pypdfium2 usage, see REFERENCE.md

• For JavaScript libraries (pdf-lib), see REFERENCE.md

• If you need to fill out a PDF form, follow the instructions in FORMS.md

• For troubleshooting guides, see REFERENCE.md