/processing-pdfs

name: processing-pdfs
description: Processes PDF files. Extracts text and tables, fills forms, merges and splits documents, batch-processes files, converts to images, and generates PDFs programmatically. Use when working with .pdf files. Do NOT use for Word documents, spreadsheets, or presentations.
user-invocable: false
allowed-tools: Bash, Read, Write, Edit, Glob
argument-hint: <file.pdf | task>

PDF Processing

Essential PDF operations using Python libraries and CLI tools.

Decision Matrix

| Task | Best Tool | Reference | |------|-----------|-----------| | Merge / split / metadata / rotate | pypdf | [recipes.md](references/recipes.md) | | Extract text (layout preserved) | pdfplumber | [recipes.md](references/recipes.md) | | Extract tables | pdfplumber | [recipes.md](references/recipes.md) | | Create new PDF | reportlab | [recipes.md](references/recipes.md) | | Batch CLI ops | qpdf / pdftk | [recipes.md](references/recipes.md) | | OCR scanned PDFs | pytesseract + pdf2image | [advanced.md](references/advanced.md) | | Add watermark / extract images / encrypt | pypdf / pdfimages | [advanced.md](references/advanced.md) | | Fill PDF forms | pdf-lib / pypdf | [FORMS.md](FORMS.md) | | Advanced pypdfium2 / pdf-lib JS | — | [REFERENCE.md](REFERENCE.md) |

Quick Start

from pypdf import PdfReader
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
print(f"Pages: {len(reader.pages)}")
text = "".join(page.extract_text() for page in reader.pages)

Workflow

1. **Identify task** — text extraction? table? creation? form? Pick row from matrix above. 2. **Load reference** — recipes.md covers 90% of tasks; advanced.md for OCR / encrypt; FORMS.md for forms. 3. **Implement** — copy-adapt recipe; verify output. 4. **Validate** — open in a viewer or grep extracted text.

Library Selection

| Library | Use for | |---------|---------| | pypdf | Merge, split, metadata, encryption, rotation | | pdfplumber | Text extraction with layout, tables | | reportlab | Generate PDFs programmatically | | pdf2image + pytesseract | OCR scanned documents | | qpdf / pdftk (CLI) | Batch ops, no Python needed |