pdf-report-workflow-cli

# PDF Report Generation with Command-Line Tools When working with PDFs in minimal/containerized environments where Python libraries may be unavailable, this skill provides a complete end-to-end workflow: verify source PDFs, extract content, assemble structured reports, and generate final PDF output. ## When to Use This Skill - Need to create new PDF reports from existing PDF sources - Need to verify, extract, and combine PDF content - Working in environments without Python PDF libraries - Building document assembly pipelines in CI/CD or containers ## Complete Workflow Overview ``` [Source PDFs] → [Verify] → [Extract] → [Assemble] → [Generate Output PDF] ``` ## Phase 1: Tool Availability Check ```bash # Core extraction tools (from poppler-utils) which pdfinfo && echo "✓ pdfinfo available" || echo "✗ pdfinfo missing" which pdftotext && echo "✓ pdftotext available" || echo "✗ pdftotext missing" # PDF generation tools (choose based on availability) which pdftk && echo "✓ pdftk available (PDF merging)" || true which wkhtmltopdf && echo "✓ wkhtmltopdf available (HTML→PDF)" || true which pandoc && echo "✓ pandoc available (document conversion)" || true which enscript && echo "✓ enscript available (text→PS)" || true which ps2pdf && echo "✓ ps2pdf available (PS→PDF)" || true ``` ### Install Required Tools ```bash # Debian/Ubuntu - Core tools apt-get update && apt-get install -y poppler-utils # Optional: PDF generation tools (choose based on needs) apt-get install -y pdftk # PDF merging/manipulation apt-get install -y wkhtmltopdf # HTML to PDF apt-get install -y pandoc # Document conversion apt-get install -y enscript ghostscript # Text to PDF pipeline # RHEL/CentOS/Fedora yum install -y poppler-utils pdftk ghostscript # or dnf install -y poppler-utils pdftk ghostscript # macOS (with Homebrew) brew install poppler pdftk ghostscript brew install --cask wkhtmltopdf # GUI app, includes CLI ``` ## Phase 2: Verify Source PDFs ### Check Page Count and Metadata ```bash # Verify each source PDF exists and is readable for pdf in source1.pdf source2.pdf source3.pdf; do if [ ! -f "$pdf" ]; then echo "ERROR: $pdf not found" exit 1 fi pages=$(pdfinfo "$pdf" | grep Pages | awk '{print $2}') echo "$pdf: $pages pages" done ``` ### Validate Content Presence ```bash # Check that required sections exist in source documents REQUIRED_TERMS=("checklist" "summary" "references") for term in "${REQUIRED_TERMS[@]}"; do if pdftotext source.pdf - | grep -qi "$term"; then echo "✓ Found: $term" else echo "⚠ Missing: $term" fi done ``` ## Phase 3: Extract Content from Source PDFs ### Extract Text to Temporary Files ```bash # Create working directory WORK_DIR=$(mktemp -d) echo "Working directory: $WORK_DIR" # Extract text from each source PDF for i in source1.pdf source2.pdf source3.pdf; do base=$(basename "$i" .pdf) pdftotext -layout "$i" "$WORK_DIR/${base}.txt" echo "Extracted: $i → ${base}.txt" done # Also extract metadata for reference pdfinfo source1.pdf > "$WORK_DIR/source1_metadata.txt" ``` ### Extract Specific Sections (Optional) ```bash # Extract only specific page ranges pdftotext -f 1 -l 3 source1.pdf "$WORK_DIR/source1_pages1-3.txt" # Extract and filter for specific content pdftotext source1.pdf - | grep -A 10 "Summary" > "$WORK_DIR/summary_section.txt" ``` ## Phase 4: Assemble Report Content ### Create Structured Report (Markdown Format) ```bash REPORT_MD="$WORK_DIR/report.md" cat > "$REPORT_MD" << 'REPORT_HEADER' # New Case Creation Report **Generated:** $(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') --- ## Executive Summary REPORT_HEADER # Add content from extracted sources echo "## Case Details" >> "$REPORT_MD" echo "" >> "$REPORT_MD" cat "$WORK_DIR/source1.txt" >> "$REPORT_MD" echo "" >> "$REPORT_MD" echo "## Supporting Documentation" >> "$REPORT_MD" echo "" >> "$REPORT_MD" cat "$WORK_DIR/source2.txt" >> "$REPORT_MD" echo "" >> "$REPORT_MD" echo "## References" >> "$REPORT_MD" echo "" >> "$REPORT_MD" cat "$WORK_DIR/source3.txt" >> "$REPORT_MD" echo "Report assembled: $REPORT_MD" ``` ### Create HTML Report (Alternative for Better Formatting) ```bash REPORT_HTML="$WORK_DIR/report.html" cat > "$REPORT_HTML" << 'HTML_HEADER' <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <title>Case Creation Report</title> <style> body { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; margin: 40px; } h1 { color: #333; border-bottom: 2px solid #333; } h2 { color: #666; } .section { margin: 20px 0; } .metadata { font-size: 0.9em; color: #888; } </style> </head> <body> <h1>New Case Creation Report</h1> <p class="metadata">Generated: HTML_HEADER date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S' >> "$REPORT_HTML" cat >> "$REPORT_HTML" << 'HTML_MIDDLE' </p> <div class="section"> <h2>Case Details</h2> HTML_MIDDLE # Convert text to HTML paragraphs (simple approach) sed 's/^/<p>/; s/$/<\/p>/' "$WORK_DIR/source1.txt" >> "$REPORT_HTML" cat >> "$REPORT_HTML" << 'HTML_END' </div> </body> </html> HTML_END echo "HTML report created: $REPORT_HTML" ``` ## Phase 5: Generate Final PDF Output ### Option A: Using pandoc (Recommended if available) ```bash # Markdown to PDF pandoc "$REPORT_MD" -o final_report.pdf \ --pdf-engine=xelatex \ -V geometry:margin=1in # Or HTML to PDF pandoc "$REPORT_HTML" -o final_report.pdf \ --pdf-engine=webkit2png # or wkhtmltopdf ``` ### Option B: Using wkhtmltopdf (HTML to PDF) ```bash wkhtmltopdf \ --page-size A4 \ --margin-top 20mm \ --margin-bottom 20mm \ --margin-left 15mm \ --margin-right 15mm \ "$REPORT_HTML" \ final_report.pdf ``` ### Option C: Using enscript + ps2pdf (Text to PDF) ```bash # Text to PostScript, then to PDF enscript \ --media=A4 \ --font=Courier10 \ --margins=20:20:20:20 \ -o "$WORK_DIR/report.ps" \ "$REPORT_MD" # PostScript to PDF ps2pdf "$WORK_DIR/report.ps" final_report.pdf ``` ### Option D: Merge Existing PDFs with pdftk ```bash # If you have multiple PDFs to combine (not convert) pdftk source1.pdf source2.pdf source3.pdf cat output combined_report.pdf # Add bookmarks/outline pdftk source1.pdf dump_data > "$WORK_DIR/bookmarks.txt" # Edit bookmarks.txt, then: pdftk source1.pdf update_info "$WORK_DIR/bookmarks.txt" output final_report.pdf ``` ## Complete End-to-End Example ```bash #!/bin/bash # pdf-report-generator.sh - Complete PDF report generation workflow set -e # Configuration SOURCE_PDFS=("case_guide.pdf" "case_summary.pdf" "test_results.pdf") OUTPUT_PDF="new_case_report.pdf" WORK_DIR=$(mktemp -d) echo "=== PDF Report Generation Workflow ===" echo "Working directory: $WORK_DIR" # Phase 1: Verify tools echo -e "\n[Phase 1] Checking tools..." for tool in pdfinfo pdftotext; do if ! command -v "$tool" &> /dev/null; then echo "ERROR: $tool not found. Install poppler-utils." exit 1 fi done # Phase 2: Verify source PDFs echo -e "\n[Phase 2] Verifying source PDFs..." for pdf in "${SOURCE_PDFS[@]}"; do if [ ! -f "$pdf" ]; then echo "ERROR: Source PDF not found: $pdf" exit 1 fi pages=$(pdfinfo "$pdf" | grep Pages | awk '{print $2}') echo "✓ $pdf: $pages pages" done # Phase 3: Extract content echo -e "\n[Phase 3] Extracting content..." for i in "${!SOURCE_PDFS[@]}"; do pdf="${SOURCE_PDFS[$i]}" base=$(basename "$pdf" .pdf) pdftotext -layout "$pdf" "$WORK_DIR/${base}.txt" echo "✓ Extracted: $pdf" done # Phase 4: Assemble report echo -e "\n[Phase 4] Assembling report..." cat > "$WORK_DIR/report.md" << EOF # New Case Creation Report **Generated:** $(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') --- EOF section_num=1 for pdf in "${SOURCE_PDFS[@]}"; do base=$(basename "$pdf" .pdf) cat >> "$WORK_DIR/report.md" << EOF ## Section $section_num: ${base//_/ } EOF cat "$WORK_DIR/${base}.txt" >> "$WORK_DIR/report.md" ((section_num++)) done echo "✓ Report assembled: $WORK_DIR/report.md" # Phase 5: Generate PDF echo -e "\n[Phase 5] Generating PDF..." if command -v pandoc &> /dev/null; then pandoc "$WORK_DIR/report.md" -o "$OUTPUT_PDF" --pdf-engine=xelatex echo "✓ Generated with pandoc: $OUTPUT_PDF" elif command -v enscript &> /dev/null; then enscript -o "$WORK_DIR/report.ps" "$WORK_DIR/report.md" ps2pdf "$WORK_DIR/report.ps" "$OUTPUT_PDF" echo "✓ Generated with enscript+ps2pdf: $OUTPUT_PDF" else echo "⚠ No PDF generator available. Report saved as Markdown: $WORK_DIR/report.md" cp "$WORK_DIR/report.md" "./${OUTPUT_PDF%.pdf}.md" fi # Cleanup echo -e "\n[Cleanup]" echo "Working files preserved in: $WORK_DIR" echo "=== Complete ===" ``` ## Python Integration Example ```python import subprocess import tempfile import os from pathlib import Path class PDFReportGenerator: """Complete PDF workflow: verify, extract, assemble, generate""" def __init__(self, work_dir=None): self.work_dir = Path(work_dir) if work_dir else Path(tempfile.mkdtemp()) self.extracted_files = [] def verify_pdf(self, pdf_path): """Verify PDF exists and get metadata""" result = subprocess.run( ['pdfinfo', str(pdf_path)], capture_output=True, text=True ) if result.returncode != 0: raise ValueError(f"Cannot read PDF: {pdf_path}") metadata = {} for line in result.stdout.split('\n'): if ':' in line: key, val = line.split(':', 1) metadata[key.strip()] = val.strip() return metadata def extract_pdf(self, pdf_path, output_name=None): """Extract text from PDF""" if output_name is None: output_name = Path(pdf_path).stem + '.txt' output_path = self.work_dir / output_name subprocess.run( ['pdftotext', '-layout', str(pdf_path), str(output_path)], check=True ) self.extracted_files.append(output_path) return output_path.read_text() def assemble_report(self, sections, output_md=None): """Assemble extracted content into markdown report""" if output_md is None: output_md = self.work_dir / 'report.md' with open(output_md, 'w') as f: f.write("# Generated Report\n\n")