pdf-trad-to-simp-preserve-layout

name

pdf-trad-to-simp-preserve-layout

description

Convert traditional Chinese PDFs to simplified Chinese while preserving page size, images, selectable text, and overall layout as much as possible. Use when Codex is asked to directly convert a source PDF from 繁体 to 简体 without rebuilding the book, to keep the original PDF structure and pictures, to replace an image-only cover after conversion, or to make the body font lighter after text-layer replacement.

PDF Trad To Simp Preserve Layout

Overview

Use this skill when layout fidelity matters more than reflowed typography. The bundled scripts keep the original PDF page geometry and images, replace only the text layer on text-based pages, and handle image-only cover pages as a separate replacement step.

Follow This Workflow

1. Inspect whether the PDF already has a usable text layer.

• Run pdftotext -f 5 -l 5 input.pdf - | sed -n '1,20p'.
• If you get readable text, use scripts/convert_pdf_t2s_preserve_layout.py.
• If the whole file is scan-only, stop and use OCR first. This skill is not an OCR workflow.

2. Choose a full Chinese font before writing simplified text back into the PDF.

• Do not reuse the source PDF's embedded subset font. Many book PDFs embed only the traditional glyph subset, so simplified text will render incorrectly or disappear.
• Prefer a lighter Songti-style font for book body text.
• On macOS, extract a face from Songti.ttc with scripts/extract_ttc_font.py, or let the converter auto-detect it.

3. Install the bundled dependencies once.

SKILL_DIR="${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills/pdf-trad-to-simp-preserve-layout"
"$SKILL_DIR/scripts/install_deps.sh"
source "$SKILL_DIR/.venv/bin/activate"

4. Convert the text layer without rebuilding the book.

python "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/convert_pdf_t2s_preserve_layout.py" \
  input.pdf output.pdf \
  --font-style light

• Pass --font-path /path/to/font.ttf if you already have a suitable full font.
• Pass --font-ttc /path/to/Songti.ttc --font-style regular to override automatic font discovery.
• Use --font-size-scale or --baseline-y-shift only for small visual tuning passes.

5. Replace image-only cover pages separately when needed.

python "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/replace_pdf_cover.py" \
  output.pdf final.pdf cover.png

• Use this when the cover is a full-page image and therefore cannot be fixed by text-layer replacement.
• The replacement preserves page count and the rest of the document.

6. Verify the result before declaring success.

• Run pdfinfo final.pdf.
• Run pdftotext -f 9 -l 9 final.pdf - | sed -n '1,20p'.
• Render a few pages and compare cover, body text weight, and image pages.
• Read references/workflow.md for troubleshooting and a more detailed checklist.

Use These Bundled Tools

• scripts/install_deps.sh: Create a skill-local virtual environment and install the required Python packages.
• scripts/extract_ttc_font.py: List or extract faces from a .ttc collection.
• scripts/convert_pdf_t2s_preserve_layout.py: Convert text-layer pages from traditional to simplified Chinese while preserving layout as much as possible.
• scripts/replace_pdf_cover.py: Replace a cover or other full-page image page without disturbing the rest of the PDF.
• references/workflow.md: Read for preflight checks, font choices, failure modes, and verification steps.