pdf

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.

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.

tabyAgent tools

• terminal_run — run all scripts and CLI tools (Python, qpdf, pdftotext, etc.).
• file_read — read extracted text or reference files.
• file_patch — edit scripts or config files.
• telegram_send_file — send the final PDF to the user.

All script paths below are relative to this skill directory: {{SYSTEM_SKILLS_DIR}}/pdf/scripts/.

Quick Start

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

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

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)

Rotate Pages

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

page = reader.pages[0]
page.rotate(90)
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)

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

c.drawString(100, height - 100, "Hello World!")
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 = []

story.append(Paragraph("Report Title", styles['Title']))
story.append(Spacer(1, 12))
story.append(Paragraph("Body text here.", styles['Normal']))
story.append(PageBreak())
story.append(Paragraph("Page 2", styles['Heading1']))

doc.build(story)

Subscripts and Superscripts

IMPORTANT: Never use Unicode subscript/superscript characters in ReportLab PDFs — they render as black boxes. Use ReportLab's XML markup tags:

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

Command-Line Tools

pdftotext (poppler-utils)

pdftotext input.pdf output.txt
pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt
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

# Rotate pages
qpdf input.pdf output.pdf --rotate=+90:1

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

Common Tasks

Extract Text from Scanned PDFs (OCR)

# Requires: pip install pytesseract pdf2image
import pytesseract
from pdf2image import convert_from_path

images = convert_from_path('scanned.pdf')

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

Add Watermark

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

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

Convert PDF to Images

python {{SYSTEM_SKILLS_DIR}}/pdf/scripts/convert_pdf_to_images.py document.pdf output_dir/

Password Protection

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

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

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

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

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

Fill PDF Forms

For fillable PDF forms, read forms.md with file_read first, then use the provided scripts:

python {{SYSTEM_SKILLS_DIR}}/pdf/scripts/check_fillable_fields.py form.pdf
python {{SYSTEM_SKILLS_DIR}}/pdf/scripts/extract_form_field_info.py form.pdf
python {{SYSTEM_SKILLS_DIR}}/pdf/scripts/fill_fillable_fields.py form.pdf output.pdf data.json

For annotation-based form filling:

python {{SYSTEM_SKILLS_DIR}}/pdf/scripts/fill_pdf_form_with_annotations.py form.pdf output.pdf data.json

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	see forms.md	Use provided scripts

Sending the result

After creating or editing the PDF, send it to the user:

telegram_send_file(path="<output.pdf>")

Dependencies

• pip install pypdf pdfplumber reportlab pytesseract pdf2image Pillow
• qpdf — command-line merge/split/rotate
• pdftotext (poppler-utils) — text extraction
• pdftoppm (poppler-utils) — PDF to images

Reference files

• forms.md — PDF form filling guide (read with file_read before filling forms)
• reference.md — Advanced PDF operations (read with file_read when needed)