# PDF

> Comprehensive PDF manipulation toolkit for extracting text and tables, creating new PDFs, merging/splitting documents, and handling forms. When Claude needs to fill in a PDF form or programmatically process, generate, or analyze PDF documents at scale.

- Skill: `majiayu000/pdf-3` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds add majiayu000/pdf-3`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/majiayu000/pdf-3/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Docs & Writing
- Author: majiayu000 (https://skillmd.com/u/majiayu000)
- Updated: 2026-09-09
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/majiayu000/pdf-3

---


# PDF Processing Guide

## Overview

Essential PDF processing operations using Python libraries and command-line tools.

## Quick Start

```python
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

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

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

## Python Libraries

### pypdf - Basic Operations

```python
from pypdf import PdfWriter, PdfReader

# Merge PDFs
writer = PdfWriter()
for pdf_file in ["doc1.pdf", "doc2.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)
```

### pdfplumber - Text and Table Extraction

```python
import pdfplumber

with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
    for page in pdf.pages:
        text = page.extract_text()
        tables = page.extract_tables()
```

### reportlab - Create PDFs

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

c = canvas.Canvas("hello.pdf", pagesize=letter)
c.drawString(100, 700, "Hello World!")
c.save()
```

## Command-Line Tools

```bash
# Extract text
pdftotext input.pdf output.txt

# Merge PDFs
qpdf --empty --pages file1.pdf file2.pdf -- merged.pdf

# Split pages
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- pages1-5.pdf
```

## Common Tasks

| 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 |
| OCR scanned PDFs | pytesseract | Convert to image first |