cli-anything-acrobat

name	cli-anything-acrobat
description	Adobe Acrobat DC command-line interface for PDF operations: format conversion (PDF→DOCX/XLSX/PPTX/PNG/etc.), page manipulation (delete/extract/rotate/reorder), merge, split, metadata, and text extraction. Requires Adobe Acrobat DC installed. Uses Acrobat's native engine for conversion; pypdf/PyMuPDF for headless operations.
agent_guidance	Always use --json for parseable output. Use absolute paths. Check exit codes. Format conversion (export to) requires an active Adobe Acrobat Pro subscription. All other operations (merge, split, rotate, info, metadata reads) work without a subscription.

cli-anything-acrobat

Adobe Acrobat DC command-line interface. Invokes the real Acrobat engine for format conversion; uses pypdf/PyMuPDF for headless operations (merge, split, rotate, info).

Installation

pip install cli-anything-acrobat
# or
pipx install cli-anything-acrobat

Requirements:

• Python 3.10+
• Adobe Acrobat DC installed at /Applications/Adobe Acrobat DC/
• Active Adobe Acrobat Pro subscription (for format conversion only)

Quick Start

# PDF info
cli-anything-acrobat info document.pdf

# JSON output for agents
cli-anything-acrobat --json info document.pdf

# Start REPL
cli-anything-acrobat

Commands

info — PDF metadata and page count

cli-anything-acrobat info <pdf>
cli-anything-acrobat --json info <pdf>

Returns: page_count, title, author, subject, file_size, encrypted, paths.

export to — Convert PDF to another format (requires Acrobat Pro)

cli-anything-acrobat export to <pdf> <output>
cli-anything-acrobat export to report.pdf report.docx
cli-anything-acrobat export to report.pdf report.png   # first page as PNG
cli-anything-acrobat export to report.pdf --format xlsx report.xlsx

Format is inferred from output extension. Supported: docx, doc, xlsx, pptx, png, jpeg, tiff, html, rtf, txt, eps, ps, xml.

# List all supported formats
cli-anything-acrobat export formats
cli-anything-acrobat --json export formats

pages — Page manipulation

# Page info
cli-anything-acrobat pages info <pdf>

# Delete pages (1-indexed, supports ranges and "last")
cli-anything-acrobat pages delete <pdf> 1,3-5 -o output.pdf
cli-anything-acrobat pages delete <pdf> last -o output.pdf

# Extract pages to new PDF
cli-anything-acrobat pages extract <pdf> 2-4 -o chapter.pdf

# Rotate pages
cli-anything-acrobat pages rotate <pdf> 90 -o rotated.pdf
cli-anything-acrobat pages rotate <pdf> 90 --pages 1,3,5 -o rotated.pdf

# Reorder pages (1-indexed list of new order)
cli-anything-acrobat pages reorder <pdf> 3 1 2 -o reordered.pdf

Page specs: "3" (single), "1,3,5" (list), "2-5" (range), "1,3-5,7" (mixed), "all", "last".

merge — Combine PDFs

cli-anything-acrobat merge a.pdf b.pdf c.pdf -o combined.pdf
cli-anything-acrobat --json merge a.pdf b.pdf -o out.pdf

Returns: total_pages, merged_files, output, file_size.

split — Split PDF into chunks

# Split into 5-page chunks
cli-anything-acrobat split report.pdf --pages-per-chunk 5 -d chunks/

# Split at explicit page boundaries (0-indexed ranges)
cli-anything-acrobat split report.pdf --ranges "0-4,5-9" -d parts/

metadata — PDF metadata

# Read metadata
cli-anything-acrobat metadata get <pdf>
cli-anything-acrobat --json metadata get <pdf>

# Set metadata (writes to output PDF via Acrobat)
cli-anything-acrobat metadata set <pdf> --title "My Doc" --author "Alice" -o out.pdf

text — Text extraction (pypdf/PyMuPDF, no Acrobat required)

cli-anything-acrobat text <pdf>
cli-anything-acrobat text <pdf> --pages 1-3

project — Session management

# Create a session (tracks operations, enables undo)
cli-anything-acrobat project new source.pdf -o project.json
cli-anything-acrobat project info -p project.json

REPL Mode

Run without subcommand for an interactive session with tab-completion:

cli-anything-acrobat
# acrobat> info document.pdf
# acrobat> pages delete document.pdf 1 -o out.pdf
# acrobat> exit

Output Format

All commands support --json for machine-readable output:

cli-anything-acrobat --json info doc.pdf
# {"page_count": 12, "title": "Annual Report", "author": "Finance", "file_size": 245000, ...}

cli-anything-acrobat --json merge a.pdf b.pdf -o out.pdf
# {"output": "/abs/path/out.pdf", "total_pages": 15, "merged_files": 2, "file_size": 312400}

Exit codes: 0 = success, 1 = error (message on stderr).

Architecture Notes

• Format conversion (export to): Uses Acrobat JS doc.saveAs({cConvID: ...}) via osascript do script. Requires active Pro subscription. Stages output through /tmp/ (macOS sandbox workaround).
• Headless operations (merge, split, rotate, info, text): Use pypdf / PyMuPDF. No Acrobat running required.
• Page delete/extract: Uses pypdf by default; falls back to Acrobat for contiguous ranges where fidelity matters (annotations, layers).

Version

1.0.0