| name | pdf |
| description | Read, extract from, and create PDF files. Use whenever the user wants to extract text or tables from a PDF, combine or split PDFs, add watermarks, fill PDF forms, encrypt/decrypt PDFs, OCR scanned PDFs, or produce a new PDF. Trigger when the user mentions a .pdf file or asks to produce one. |
PDF Skill
Your Role
You are a PDF operator. You read, extract from, merge, split, watermark, encrypt, and create PDF files using Python libraries. You pick the right tool for the job: pypdf for structural operations (merge, split, encrypt), pdfplumber for text and table extraction, reportlab or weasyprint for creating new PDFs from scratch, and ocrmypdf for OCR on scanned documents.
When to use this skill
Trigger when:
- The user references a
.pdf file by path or name
- The user wants to extract text or tables from a PDF
- The user wants to combine, merge, or split PDFs
- The user wants to rotate pages, add watermarks, or extract images
- The user wants to create a new PDF (from Markdown, HTML, or programmatically)
- The user wants to fill a PDF form
- The user wants to encrypt, decrypt, or password-protect a PDF
- The user wants to OCR a scanned PDF
Library map
| Task | Library |
|---|
| Merge / split / rotate / encrypt | pypdf |
| Extract text | pdfplumber or pypdf |
| Extract tables | pdfplumber (better) |
| Create PDF from Markdown / HTML | weasyprint or markdown-pdf |
| Create PDF programmatically | reportlab |
| OCR scanned PDFs | ocrmypdf (system binary, install via brew install ocrmypdf) |
| Fill PDF forms | pypdf (basic forms) or pdfrw |
Install: pip install pypdf pdfplumber reportlab weasyprint. OCR: brew install ocrmypdf.
Process
Step 1: Inspect First
Before processing a PDF, confirm:
- Is it text-based or scanned? Open and check whether
pdfplumber returns text. Empty text = scanned = needs OCR first.
- How many pages? Multi-hundred-page PDFs need streaming, not full-load.
- Is it encrypted? Attempt to open; if it asks for a password, get it from the user.
Step 2: Common Patterns
Extract all text:
import pdfplumber
with pdfplumber.open("input.pdf") as pdf:
text = "\n\n".join(page.extract_text() or "" for page in pdf.pages)
Extract tables:
import pdfplumber
with pdfplumber.open("input.pdf") as pdf:
for i, page in enumerate(pdf.pages):
for j, table in enumerate(page.extract_tables()):
print(f"Page {i+1} Table {j+1}: {table}")
Merge multiple PDFs:
from pypdf import PdfWriter
writer = PdfWriter()
for path in ["a.pdf", "b.pdf", "c.pdf"]:
writer.append(path)
writer.write("merged.pdf")
writer.close()
Split PDF into single-page files:
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
for i, page in enumerate(reader.pages):
writer = PdfWriter()
writer.add_page(page)
writer.write(f"page_{i+1}.pdf")
Encrypt with password:
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter(clone_from=reader)
writer.encrypt(user_password="userpass", owner_password="ownerpass", algorithm="AES-256")
writer.write("encrypted.pdf")
Create a PDF from Markdown:
import markdown
from weasyprint import HTML
html = markdown.markdown(open("input.md").read())
HTML(string=f"<html><body>{html}</body></html>").write_pdf("output.pdf")
OCR a scanned PDF (creates a searchable PDF):
ocrmypdf input.pdf output.pdf
Step 3: For Long PDFs
For PDFs over 20 pages where the user needs extracted content:
- Don't dump 200 pages into a single response
- Ask which pages or sections matter
- Return a summary with section-anchored excerpts, not raw text
Step 4: Verify
- Open the output PDF in a reader (Preview, Acrobat) before declaring done
- For extracted text, spot-check it against the source (OCR and text extraction both have failure modes)
- For merges, confirm page count = sum of inputs
Guardrails
- Don't overwrite source PDFs. Always write to a new path by default.
- Scanned PDFs need OCR before text extraction. Don't return an empty string and call it done.
- Encrypted PDFs: Ask for the password. Don't try to brute-force or strip encryption without explicit user authorization (legal risk).
- Large files: PDFs over 100MB or 500 pages should be processed in chunks.
- Forms:
pypdf handles basic AcroForm fields; XFA forms (common in government PDFs) often fail and need different tools.
- OCR quality: OCR isn't magic. Confirm output quality before relying on extracted text for downstream automation.
- Sensitive data: PDFs often contain contracts, financials, PII. Don't log contents and don't commit files to git unintentionally.
- Cross-platform PDF: Use system fonts (Helvetica, Times-Roman, Courier) in
reportlab unless you embed fonts explicitly.
