pdf

name	pdf
description	Complete toolkit for handling PDF files—extracting text and tables, generating documents, merging/splitting, and populating forms. Deploy when you need to process, create, or examine PDFs programmatically.
license	MIT

PDF Operations

What's Inside

This resource outlines fundamental PDF operations using Python libraries and command-line utilities. For advanced capabilities, JavaScript alternatives, and extended examples, see reference.md. For form completion details, consult forms.md.

Quick Reference

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

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

# Extract text
text = ""
for page in reader.pages:
    text += page.extract_text()

Python Libraries

pypdf — Core Operations

Merge documents:

from pypdf import PdfWriter, PdfReader

writer = PdfWriter()
for pdf in ["a.pdf", "b.pdf", "c.pdf"]:
    reader = PdfReader(pdf)
    for page in reader.pages:
        writer.add_page(page)

with open("combined.pdf", "wb") as f:
    writer.write(f)

Split document:

reader = PdfReader("source.pdf")
for i, page in enumerate(reader.pages):
    writer = PdfWriter()
    writer.add_page(page)
    with open(f"page_{i+1}.pdf", "wb") as f:
        writer.write(f)

Metadata:

reader = PdfReader("file.pdf")
meta = reader.metadata
print(f"Title: {meta.title}")
print(f"Author: {meta.author}")

Rotate pages:

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

page = reader.pages[0]
page.rotate(90)  # Clockwise
writer.add_page(page)

with open("rotated.pdf", "wb") as f:
    writer.write(f)

pdfplumber — Text & Tables

Text with layout:

import pdfplumber

with pdfplumber.open("file.pdf") as pdf:
    for page in pdf.pages:
        print(page.extract_text())

Table extraction:

with pdfplumber.open("file.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)

Tables to Excel:

import pandas as pd

with pdfplumber.open("file.pdf") as pdf:
    all_tables = []
    for page in pdf.pages:
        for table in page.extract_tables():
            if table:
                df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0])
                all_tables.append(df)
    
    if all_tables:
        pd.concat(all_tables).to_excel("output.xlsx", index=False)

reportlab — PDF Creation

Simple PDF:

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas

c = canvas.Canvas("output.pdf", pagesize=letter)
width, height = letter

c.drawString(100, height - 100, "Hello World!")
c.line(100, height - 140, 400, height - 140)
c.save()

Multi-page:

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("Title", styles['Title']))
story.append(Spacer(1, 12))
story.append(Paragraph("Content here..." * 20, styles['Normal']))
story.append(PageBreak())
story.append(Paragraph("Page 2", styles['Heading1']))

doc.build(story)

Command-Line Tools

pdftotext

# Extract text
pdftotext input.pdf output.txt

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

# Pages 1-5 only
pdftotext -f 1 -l 5 input.pdf output.txt

qpdf

# Merge
qpdf --empty --pages a.pdf b.pdf -- output.pdf

# Split ranges
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- part1.pdf
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 6-10 -- part2.pdf

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

# Decrypt
qpdf --password=pass --decrypt encrypted.pdf decrypted.pdf

pdftk

# Merge
pdftk a.pdf b.pdf cat output combined.pdf

# Split all pages
pdftk input.pdf burst

# Rotate
pdftk input.pdf rotate 1east output rotated.pdf

Common Tasks

OCR for Scanned PDFs

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)
print(text)

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 f:
    writer.write(f)

Extract Images

pdfimages -j input.pdf prefix
# Creates prefix-000.jpg, 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)

writer.encrypt("userpass", "ownerpass")
with open("secure.pdf", "wb") as f:
    writer.write(f)

Tool Selection

Goal	Tool	Method
Merge	pypdf	writer.add_page(page)
Split	pypdf	One per file
Text extraction	pdfplumber	page.extract_text()
Table extraction	pdfplumber	page.extract_tables()
Create PDF	reportlab	Canvas or Platypus
CLI merge	qpdf	qpdf --empty --pages ...
OCR	pytesseract	Convert to images first
Forms	pdf-lib or pypdf	See forms.md

See Also

• reference.md — Advanced pypdfium2, JavaScript pdf-lib
• forms.md — Form filling instructions