pdf

name	pdf
description	Use when tasks involve reading, creating, or reviewing PDF files where rendering and layout matter; prefer visual checks by rendering pages (Poppler) and use Python tools such as `reportlab`, `pdfplumber`, and `pypdf` for generation and extraction.

PDF Skill

When to use

• Read or review PDF content where layout and visuals matter.

• Create PDFs programmatically with reliable formatting.

• Validate final rendering before delivery.

For academic citation-evidence marking, use evidence-based-literature-workflow first. This PDF skill can help render pages and inspect screenshots, but it must not replace the citation evidence rules for body-text evidence, exact sentence highlighting, source-copy protection, and independent review gates.

For citation-evidence screenshots, verify that each highlight covers the complete evidence sentence or continuous sentence group. A search-hit highlight around only keywords is not a valid academic citation annotation. Clear stale screenshots, manual notes, and annotated PDFs from earlier rounds before final inspection.

Workflow

1. Prefer visual review: render PDF pages to PNGs and inspect them.

   • Use pdftoppm if available.

   • If unavailable, install Poppler or ask the user to review the output locally.

2. Use reportlab to generate PDFs when creating new documents.

3. Use pdfplumber (or pypdf) for text extraction and quick checks; do not rely on it for layout fidelity.

4. After each meaningful update, re-render pages and verify alignment, spacing, and legibility.

Optional structured extraction backend

Use OpenDataLoader PDF only when an existing PDF needs structured Markdown/JSON extraction for reading, evidence triage, or table/layout inspection.

Local wrapper:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File skills/scripts/run-opendataloader-pdf.ps1 INPUT.pdf -o OUTPUT_DIR -f markdown,json --pages 1-3 --quiet

Rules:

• It is a parser for already obtained PDFs, not a literature download route.

• Keep outputs inside the active project output directory.

• Do not use its Markdown as final citation evidence unless the original PDF location is checked against the citation-evidence rules.

• For scanned pages without text, the base parser may return images only; do not enable hybrid/OCR backends unless the task explicitly allows heavier model dependencies and a separate smoke test passes.

• The MCP server variant is not enabled by default. It needs a separate permission review because it exposes local PDF path access to an agent tool.

Temp and output conventions

• Use tmp/pdfs/ for intermediate files; delete when done.

• Write final artifacts under output/pdf/ when working in this repo.

• Keep filenames stable and descriptive.

Dependencies (install if missing)

Prefer uv for dependency management.

Python packages:

uv pip install reportlab pdfplumber pypdf opendataloader-pdf==2.4.6

If uv is unavailable:

python3 -m pip install reportlab pdfplumber pypdf opendataloader-pdf==2.4.6

System tools (for rendering):

# macOS (Homebrew)

brew install poppler



# Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt-get install -y poppler-utils

If installation isn't possible in this environment, tell the user which dependency is missing and how to install it locally.

Environment

No required environment variables.

Rendering command

pdftoppm -png $INPUT_PDF $OUTPUT_PREFIX

Quality expectations

• Maintain polished visual design: consistent typography, spacing, margins, and section hierarchy.

• Avoid rendering issues: clipped text, overlapping elements, broken tables, black squares, or unreadable glyphs.

• Charts, tables, and images must be sharp, aligned, and clearly labeled.

• Use ASCII hyphens only. Avoid U+2011 (non-breaking hyphen) and other Unicode dashes.

• Citations and references must be human-readable; never leave tool tokens or placeholder strings.

Final checks

• Do not deliver until the latest PNG inspection shows zero visual or formatting defects.

• Confirm headers/footers, page numbering, and section transitions look polished.

• Keep intermediate files organized or remove them after final approval.