PDF Processing Guide

1---
2name: pdf
3description: 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.
4license: Proprietary. LICENSE.txt has complete terms
5---
6 
7# PDF Processing Guide
8 
9## Overview
10 
11This guide covers essential PDF processing operations using Python libraries and command-line tools. For advanced features, JavaScript libraries, and detailed examples, see reference.md. If you need to fill out a PDF form, read forms.md and follow its instructions.
12 
13## Quick Start
14 
15```python
16from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
17 
18# Read a PDF
19reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
20print(f"Pages: {len(reader.pages)}")
21 
22# Extract text
23text = ""
24for page in reader.pages:
25    text += page.extract_text()
26```
27 
28## Python Libraries
29 
30### pypdf - Basic Operations
31 
32#### Merge PDFs
33```python
34from pypdf import PdfWriter, PdfReader
35 
36writer = PdfWriter()
37for pdf_file in ["doc1.pdf", "doc2.pdf", "doc3.pdf"]:
38    reader = PdfReader(pdf_file)
39    for page in reader.pages:
40        writer.add_page(page)
41 
42with open("merged.pdf", "wb") as output:
43    writer.write(output)
44```
45 
46#### Split PDF
47```python
48reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
49for i, page in enumerate(reader.pages):
50    writer = PdfWriter()
51    writer.add_page(page)
52    with open(f"page_{i+1}.pdf", "wb") as output:
53        writer.write(output)
54```
55 
56#### Extract Metadata
57```python
58reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
59meta = reader.metadata
60print(f"Title: {meta.title}")
61print(f"Author: {meta.author}")
62print(f"Subject: {meta.subject}")
63print(f"Creator: {meta.creator}")
64```
65 
66#### Rotate Pages
67```python
68reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
69writer = PdfWriter()
70 
71page = reader.pages[0]
72page.rotate(90)  # Rotate 90 degrees clockwise
73writer.add_page(page)
74 
75with open("rotated.pdf", "wb") as output:
76    writer.write(output)
77```
78 
79### pdfplumber - Text and Table Extraction
80 
81#### Extract Text with Layout
82```python
83import pdfplumber
84 
85with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
86    for page in pdf.pages:
87        text = page.extract_text()
88        print(text)
89```
90 
91#### Extract Tables
92```python
93with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
94    for i, page in enumerate(pdf.pages):
95        tables = page.extract_tables()
96        for j, table in enumerate(tables):
97            print(f"Table {j+1} on page {i+1}:")
98            for row in table:
99                print(row)
100```
101 
102#### Advanced Table Extraction
103```python
104import pandas as pd
105 
106with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
107    all_tables = []
108    for page in pdf.pages:
109        tables = page.extract_tables()
110        for table in tables:
111            if table:  # Check if table is not empty
112                df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0])
113                all_tables.append(df)
114 
115# Combine all tables
116if all_tables:
117    combined_df = pd.concat(all_tables, ignore_index=True)
118    combined_df.to_excel("extracted_tables.xlsx", index=False)
119```
120 
121### reportlab - Create PDFs
122 
123#### Basic PDF Creation
124```python
125from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
126from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
127 
128c = canvas.Canvas("hello.pdf", pagesize=letter)
129width, height = letter
130 
131# Add text
132c.drawString(100, height - 100, "Hello World!")
133c.drawString(100, height - 120, "This is a PDF created with reportlab")
134 
135# Add a line
136c.line(100, height - 140, 400, height - 140)
137 
138# Save
139c.save()
140```
141 
142#### Create PDF with Multiple Pages
143```python
144from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
145from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Spacer, PageBreak
146from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
147 
148doc = SimpleDocTemplate("report.pdf", pagesize=letter)
149styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
150story = []
151 
152# Add content
153title = Paragraph("Report Title", styles['Title'])
154story.append(title)
155story.append(Spacer(1, 12))
156 
157body = Paragraph("This is the body of the report. " * 20, styles['Normal'])
158story.append(body)
159story.append(PageBreak())
160 
161# Page 2
162story.append(Paragraph("Page 2", styles['Heading1']))
163story.append(Paragraph("Content for page 2", styles['Normal']))
164 
165# Build PDF
166doc.build(story)
167```
168 
169## Command-Line Tools
170 
171### pdftotext (poppler-utils)
172```bash
173# Extract text
174pdftotext input.pdf output.txt
175 
176# Extract text preserving layout
177pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt
178 
179# Extract specific pages
180pdftotext -f 1 -l 5 input.pdf output.txt  # Pages 1-5
181```
182 
183### qpdf
184```bash
185# Merge PDFs
186qpdf --empty --pages file1.pdf file2.pdf -- merged.pdf
187 
188# Split pages
189qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- pages1-5.pdf
190qpdf input.pdf --pages . 6-10 -- pages6-10.pdf
191 
192# Rotate pages
193qpdf input.pdf output.pdf --rotate=+90:1  # Rotate page 1 by 90 degrees
194 
195# Remove password
196qpdf --password=mypassword --decrypt encrypted.pdf decrypted.pdf
197```
198 
199### pdftk (if available)
200```bash
201# Merge
202pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf cat output merged.pdf
203 
204# Split
205pdftk input.pdf burst
206 
207# Rotate
208pdftk input.pdf rotate 1east output rotated.pdf
209```
210 
211## Common Tasks
212 
213### Extract Text from Scanned PDFs
214```python
215# Requires: pip install pytesseract pdf2image
216import pytesseract
217from pdf2image import convert_from_path
218 
219# Convert PDF to images
220images = convert_from_path('scanned.pdf')
221 
222# OCR each page
223text = ""
224for i, image in enumerate(images):
225    text += f"Page {i+1}:\n"
226    text += pytesseract.image_to_string(image)
227    text += "\n\n"
228 
229print(text)
230```
231 
232### Add Watermark
233```python
234from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
235 
236# Create watermark (or load existing)
237watermark = PdfReader("watermark.pdf").pages[0]
238 
239# Apply to all pages
240reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
241writer = PdfWriter()
242 
243for page in reader.pages:
244    page.merge_page(watermark)
245    writer.add_page(page)
246 
247with open("watermarked.pdf", "wb") as output:
248    writer.write(output)
249```
250 
251### Extract Images
252```bash
253# Using pdfimages (poppler-utils)
254pdfimages -j input.pdf output_prefix
255 
256# This extracts all images as output_prefix-000.jpg, output_prefix-001.jpg, etc.
257```
258 
259### Password Protection
260```python
261from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
262 
263reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
264writer = PdfWriter()
265 
266for page in reader.pages:
267    writer.add_page(page)
268 
269# Add password
270writer.encrypt("userpassword", "ownerpassword")
271 
272with open("encrypted.pdf", "wb") as output:
273    writer.write(output)
274```
275 
276## Quick Reference
277 
278| Task | Best Tool | Command/Code |
279|------|-----------|--------------|
280| Merge PDFs | pypdf | `writer.add_page(page)` |
281| Split PDFs | pypdf | One page per file |
282| Extract text | pdfplumber | `page.extract_text()` |
283| Extract tables | pdfplumber | `page.extract_tables()` |
284| Create PDFs | reportlab | Canvas or Platypus |
285| Command line merge | qpdf | `qpdf --empty --pages ...` |
286| OCR scanned PDFs | pytesseract | Convert to image first |
287| Fill PDF forms | pdf-lib or pypdf (see forms.md) | See forms.md |
288 
289## Next Steps
290 
291- For advanced pypdfium2 usage, see reference.md
292- For JavaScript libraries (pdf-lib), see reference.md
293- If you need to fill out a PDF form, follow the instructions in forms.md
294- For troubleshooting guides, see reference.md
295