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Quick Start: Extract Text from PDF

Need to extract text from a PDF? Use this Python snippet:

from pypdf import PdfReader

reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
text = "".join(page.extract_text() for page in reader.pages)
print(text)

Or from the command line:

uvx --with pypdf python /path/to/extract_pdf_text.py document.pdf

PDF Text Extraction

Basic Usage

from pypdf import PdfReader

# Read all pages
reader = PdfReader("file.pdf")
for page in reader.pages:
    text = page.extract_text()
    print(text)

Extract Specific Pages

from pypdf import PdfReader

reader = PdfReader("file.pdf")
# Get pages 1-5 (0-indexed)
for page in reader.pages[0:5]:
    print(page.extract_text())

Using the Script

This skill includes scripts/extract_pdf_text.py for command-line extraction:

# Extract all pages to stdout
python extract_pdf_text.py document.pdf

# Extract to file
python extract_pdf_text.py document.pdf --output text.txt

# Extract specific pages
python extract_pdf_text.py document.pdf --pages 1-5
python extract_pdf_text.py document.pdf --pages 1,3,5

Requirements

• pypdf: uvx --with pypdf python <script>
• Works with most text-based PDFs
• Scanned PDFs without OCR won't extract text

Common Issues

"No text extracted": The PDF may be scanned (image-based) without OCR. OCR support requires additional tools.

"Encoding errors": pypdf handles most encodings, but some PDFs may have encoding issues. Use page.extract_text(layout=True) for layout-aware extraction if available.

Future: Support for DOCX, XLSX, and other formats coming soon.