pdf

name	pdf
description	Comprehensive PDF manipulation toolkit for extracting text and tables, creating new PDFs, merging/splitting documents, and handling forms. When Claude needs to fill in a PDF form or programmatically process, generate, or analyze PDF documents at scale.
license	Proprietary. LICENSE.txt has complete terms

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.

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

import os
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.pdfbase import pdfmetrics
from reportlab.pdfbase.ttfonts import TTFont
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas


def register_cjk_font():
    font_candidates = [
        # Windows
        ("CJK", r"C:\Windows\Fonts\msyh.ttc", 0),
        ("CJK", r"C:\Windows\Fonts\simhei.ttf", 0),
        ("CJK", r"C:\Windows\Fonts\simsun.ttc", 0),
        # macOS
        ("CJK", "/System/Library/Fonts/PingFang.ttc", 0),
        ("CJK", "/System/Library/Fonts/Hiragino Sans GB.ttc", 0),
        # Linux
        ("CJK", "/usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc", 0),
        ("CJK", "/usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSerifCJK-Regular.ttc", 0),
        ("CJK", "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/wqy/wqy-zenhei.ttc", 0),
    ]

    for font_name, font_path, subfont_index in font_candidates:
        if os.path.exists(font_path):
            pdfmetrics.registerFont(
                TTFont(font_name, font_path, subfontIndex=subfont_index)
            )
            return font_name, font_path

    raise RuntimeError(
        "No usable CJK font found. Install a font such as Noto Sans CJK first."
    )


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

# Always switch to the detected CJK font before drawing Chinese text.
c.setFont(font_name, 14)
c.drawString(100, height - 100, "你好，世界")
c.drawString(100, height - 125, f"Using font: {font_path}")
c.drawString(100, height - 150, "This PDF was created with reportlab.")
c.line(100, height - 170, 420, height - 170)
c.save()

Create PDF with Multiple Pages

import os
from reportlab.lib import colors
from reportlab.lib.enums import TA_CENTER
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import A4
from reportlab.lib.styles import ParagraphStyle, getSampleStyleSheet
from reportlab.lib.units import cm
from reportlab.pdfbase import pdfmetrics
from reportlab.pdfbase.ttfonts import TTFont
from reportlab.platypus import (
    PageBreak,
    Paragraph,
    SimpleDocTemplate,
    Spacer,
    Table,
    TableStyle,
)


def register_report_fonts():
    candidates = [
        # Windows
        ("PDF-CJK", "PDF-CJK-Bold", r"C:\Windows\Fonts\msyh.ttc", r"C:\Windows\Fonts\msyhbd.ttc", 0, 0),
        ("PDF-CJK", "PDF-CJK-Bold", r"C:\Windows\Fonts\simhei.ttf", r"C:\Windows\Fonts\simhei.ttf", 0, 0),
        # macOS
        ("PDF-CJK", "PDF-CJK-Bold", "/System/Library/Fonts/PingFang.ttc", "/System/Library/Fonts/PingFang.ttc", 0, 0),
        ("PDF-CJK", "PDF-CJK-Bold", "/System/Library/Fonts/Hiragino Sans GB.ttc", "/System/Library/Fonts/Hiragino Sans GB.ttc", 0, 0),
        # Linux
        ("PDF-CJK", "PDF-CJK-Bold", "/usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc", "/usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Bold.ttc", 0, 0),
        ("PDF-CJK", "PDF-CJK-Bold", "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/wqy/wqy-zenhei.ttc", "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/wqy/wqy-zenhei.ttc", 0, 0),
    ]

    for regular_name, bold_name, regular_path, bold_path, regular_index, bold_index in candidates:
        if not os.path.exists(regular_path):
            continue

        pdfmetrics.registerFont(
            TTFont(regular_name, regular_path, subfontIndex=regular_index)
        )

        if os.path.exists(bold_path):
            pdfmetrics.registerFont(
                TTFont(bold_name, bold_path, subfontIndex=bold_index)
            )
        else:
            bold_name = regular_name

        return regular_name, bold_name, regular_path, bold_path

    raise RuntimeError(
        "No usable CJK font found. On Linux, install fonts-noto-cjk first."
    )


font_regular, font_bold, regular_path, bold_path = register_report_fonts()
doc = SimpleDocTemplate("report.pdf", pagesize=A4)
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()

title_style = ParagraphStyle(
    "TitleCJK",
    parent=styles["Title"],
    fontName=font_bold,
    fontSize=20,
    leading=24,
    alignment=TA_CENTER,
    textColor=colors.HexColor("#1E6BB8"),
    wordWrap="CJK",
)
body_style = ParagraphStyle(
    "BodyCJK",
    parent=styles["BodyText"],
    fontName=font_regular,
    fontSize=11,
    leading=16,
    wordWrap="CJK",
)
heading_style = ParagraphStyle(
    "HeadingCJK",
    parent=styles["Heading1"],
    fontName=font_bold,
    fontSize=14,
    leading=18,
    wordWrap="CJK",
)

story = [
    Paragraph("年度财务报告", title_style),
    Spacer(1, 12),
    Paragraph(
        f"Detected font: {regular_path}<br/>This template checks system fonts before creating the PDF.",
        body_style,
    ),
    Spacer(1, 12),
    Paragraph("关键指标", heading_style),
]

table = Table(
    [
        ["指标", "金额"],
        ["营业收入", "1,780 亿元"],
        ["净利润", "502 亿元"],
    ],
    colWidths=[6 * cm, 5 * cm],
)
table.setStyle(
    TableStyle(
        [
            ("BACKGROUND", (0, 0), (-1, 0), colors.HexColor("#1E6BB8")),
            ("TEXTCOLOR", (0, 0), (-1, 0), colors.white),
            ("ALIGN", (0, 0), (-1, -1), "CENTER"),
            ("FONTNAME", (0, 0), (-1, 0), font_bold),
            ("FONTNAME", (0, 1), (-1, -1), font_regular),
            ("GRID", (0, 0), (-1, -1), 0.8, colors.grey),
            ("TOPPADDING", (0, 0), (-1, -1), 8),
            ("BOTTOMPADDING", (0, 0), (-1, -1), 8),
        ]
    )
)
story.append(table)
story.append(PageBreak())
story.append(Paragraph("第二页", heading_style))
story.append(Paragraph("所有段落和表格都显式使用检测到的中文字体。", body_style))

doc.build(story)

When generating PDFs with Chinese, never rely on reportlab built-in fonts such as Helvetica or Times-Roman. Detect a usable CJK font first, register it with TTFont, and then assign that font explicitly in every ParagraphStyle, canvas.setFont(...), and TableStyle.

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