---

name: pdf description: Create, merge, split, and extract content from PDF files. Activates for "PDF", "merge PDF", "split PDF", "extract text", "create PDF", "PDF form". allowed-tools: [Read, Write, Bash, Task]

PDF Processing Skill

When This Skill Activates

• "Create a PDF", "generate PDF"
• "Merge PDFs", "combine PDF files"
• "Split PDF", "extract pages"
• "Extract text from PDF"
• "Fill PDF form"
• "Add watermark", "protect PDF"

Core Libraries

Workflows

1. Extract Text

With layout preservation:

Copy# CLI tool (best for layout)
pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt

Using pdfplumber (Python):

Copyimport pdfplumber

with pdfplumber.open('input.pdf') as pdf:
    for page in pdf.pages:
        text = page.extract_text()
        print(text)

2. Extract Tables

Copyimport pdfplumber
import pandas as pd

with pdfplumber.open('input.pdf') as pdf:
    for page in pdf.pages:
        tables = page.extract_tables()
        for table in tables:
            df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0])
            print(df)

3. Merge PDFs

Copyfrom pypdf import PdfMerger

merger = PdfMerger()
merger.append('file1.pdf')
merger.append('file2.pdf')
merger.append('file3.pdf')
merger.write('merged.pdf')
merger.close()

CLI alternative:

Copyqpdf --empty --pages file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf -- merged.pdf

4. Split PDF

Copyfrom pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

reader = PdfReader('input.pdf')

# Split each page into separate file
for i, page in enumerate(reader.pages):
    writer = PdfWriter()
    writer.add_page(page)
    writer.write(f'page_{i+1}.pdf')

# Extract specific pages (1-5)
writer = PdfWriter()
for i in range(5):
    writer.add_page(reader.pages[i])
writer.write('pages_1-5.pdf')

5. Create PDF from Scratch

Simple text document:

Copyfrom reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter

c = canvas.Canvas('output.pdf', pagesize=letter)
c.setFont('Helvetica', 12)
c.drawString(72, 750, 'Hello, World!')
c.save()

Structured document with Platypus:

Copyfrom reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Spacer
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter

doc = SimpleDocTemplate('output.pdf', pagesize=letter)
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
story = []

story.append(Paragraph('Title', styles['Heading1']))
story.append(Spacer(1, 12))
story.append(Paragraph('Body text here...', styles['Normal']))

doc.build(story)

6. Rotate Pages

Copyfrom pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

reader = PdfReader('input.pdf')
writer = PdfWriter()

for page in reader.pages:
    page.rotate(90)  # 90, 180, 270
    writer.add_page(page)

writer.write('rotated.pdf')

7. Add Watermark

Copyfrom pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

watermark = PdfReader('watermark.pdf').pages[0]
reader = PdfReader('input.pdf')
writer = PdfWriter()

for page in reader.pages:
    page.merge_page(watermark)
    writer.add_page(page)

writer.write('watermarked.pdf')

8. Password Protection

Copyfrom pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

reader = PdfReader('input.pdf')
writer = PdfWriter()

for page in reader.pages:
    writer.add_page(page)

writer.encrypt('user_password', 'owner_password')
writer.write('protected.pdf')

9. OCR for Scanned PDFs

Copyimport pytesseract
from pdf2image import convert_from_path

# Convert PDF pages to images
images = convert_from_path('scanned.pdf')

# OCR each page
for i, image in enumerate(images):
    text = pytesseract.image_to_string(image)
    print(f'--- Page {i+1} ---')
    print(text)

CLI Tools Reference

Copy# Extract text with layout
pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt

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

# Split PDF (extract pages 1-5)
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- output.pdf

# Rotate 90 degrees
qpdf input.pdf --rotate=90 -- output.pdf

# Decrypt PDF
qpdf --decrypt input.pdf output.pdf

Dependencies

Copypip install pypdf pdfplumber reportlab PyMuPDF pytesseract pdf2image
brew install poppler tesseract qpdf  # macOS
# apt-get install poppler-utils tesseract-ocr qpdf  # Linux

Form Filling (Advanced)

For PDF forms, use PyMuPDF:

Copyimport fitz

doc = fitz.open('form.pdf')
page = doc[0]

# Get form fields
for widget in page.widgets():
    print(widget.field_name, widget.field_value)

# Fill field
for widget in page.widgets():
    if widget.field_name == 'name':
        widget.field_value = 'John Doe'
        widget.update()

doc.save('filled.pdf')

Output Format

Copy## PDF Operation: [Extract/Merge/Split/Create]

### Input
[Source files or content]

### Actions
1. [Action taken]
2. [Action taken]

### Output
[Result file: path, pages, size]

### Verification
[Success confirmation]