pdf · diff

git:20260525.0cce043 to git:20260525.0f9aa2e

4 added, 1 removed. Audit A to A.

---

name: pdf

description: Use this skill whenever the user wants to do anything with PDF files. This includes reading or extracting text/tables from PDFs, combining or merging multiple PDFs into one, splitting PDFs apart, rotating pages, adding watermarks, creating new PDFs, filling PDF forms, encrypting/decrypting PDFs, extracting images, and OCR on scanned PDFs to make them searchable. If the user mentions a .pdf file or asks to produce one, use this skill.

license: Proprietary. LICENSE.txt has complete terms

---

# PDF Processing Guide

## Overview

This guide covers PDF **transformations** — merging, splitting, rotating, watermarking, encrypting, filling forms, extracting images, and OCRing scanned PDFs. **Reading text/tables is handled by `read_file` directly; do NOT use this skill for plain reading.** See REFERENCE.md for advanced library usage and FORMS.md for form filling.

+ **All dependencies referenced in this skill are pre-installed in the sandbox image** — `pypdf`, `pdfplumber`, `pypdfium2`, `reportlab`, `pytesseract`, `pdf2image`, `Pillow`, `pandas`, `numpy`, and the JavaScript libs `pdf-lib` + `pdfjs-dist`, plus the command-line tools `pdftotext` / `pdftoppm` / `pdfimages` (poppler-utils), `qpdf`, `pdftk`, `pandoc`, and `tesseract`. **Do NOT `pip install` or `npm install` anything** — just import or invoke directly.

## Reading PDF text — use `read_file`

For **any** request to read, summarise, analyse, extract data from, or aggregate the contents of a PDF, call `read_file` directly:

```

read_file(path="path/to/document.pdf")

```

The harness parses PDFs natively via `markitdown` and returns markdown.

Pagination via `offset`/`limit` is free (cached). Do **NOT** `pip install

pypdf`/`pdfplumber`/`pymupdf` or write subprocess extraction scripts for

reading — that bootstrap is exactly what `read_file` eliminates.

If `read_file` fails on a specific PDF (encrypted, corrupt, or a scanned

image-only PDF with no text layer), it returns a fallback hint pointing

to `pdftotext`/`pandoc` or — for scanned PDFs — the `ocr-and-documents`

skill. Only then drop down to the library recipes below.

The Python libraries on this page are for **transformations** (the next

sections), not for reading.

## Python Libraries

### pypdf - Basic Operations

#### Merge PDFs

```python

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

```python

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

```python

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

```python

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 - Layout-aware text + tables (fallback only)

For plain text/markdown, `read_file(path)` is the right call (see top of

this skill). Use `pdfplumber` only when you need precise layout

preservation or per-table structured extraction that `read_file` does

not give you — e.g., multi-line cells, merged headers, or extracting a

specific table on a specific page.

#### Extract Text with Layout

```python

import pdfplumber

with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:

for page in pdf.pages:

text = page.extract_text()

print(text)

```

#### Extract Tables

```python

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

```python

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

```python

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

```python

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 (₀₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉, ⁰¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹) in ReportLab PDFs. The built-in fonts do not include these glyphs, causing them to render as solid black boxes.

Instead, use ReportLab's XML markup tags in Paragraph objects:

```python

from reportlab.platypus import Paragraph

from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet

styles = getSampleStyleSheet()

# Subscripts: use <sub> tag

chemical = Paragraph("H<sub>2</sub>O", styles['Normal'])

# Superscripts: use <super> tag

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

```

For canvas-drawn text (not Paragraph objects), manually adjust font the size and position rather than using Unicode subscripts/superscripts.

## Command-Line Tools

### pdftotext (poppler-utils)

```bash

# 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

```bash

# 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)

```bash

# 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

```python

- # Requires: pip install pytesseract pdf2image

+ # pytesseract + pdf2image are pre-installed; tesseract-ocr is in the

+ # sandbox image's apt layer. Just import and run.

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

```python

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

```bash

# 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

```python

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 |

|------|-----------|--------------|

| **Read text / tables / aggregate data** | **`read_file`** | `read_file(path="document.pdf")` |

| Merge PDFs | pypdf | `writer.add_page(page)` |

| Split PDFs | pypdf | One page per file |

| Layout-precise text / structured tables (fallback) | pdfplumber | `page.extract_text()` / `page.extract_tables()` |

| Create PDFs | reportlab | Canvas or Platypus |

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

| OCR scanned PDFs | `ocr-and-documents` skill or 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