AnthropicOfficialPublished by Anthropic
- Skill
- Tool integration
- Documents and content
- Apache-2.0
- Low risk
- Has scripts
AutoGineer summary
Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author
This skill provides a structured approach to managing and manipulating PDF files. It covers a wide range of operations including merging, splitting, rotating, and encrypting documents, as well as extracting text, tables, and images. The guide details the use of Python libraries such as pypdf, pdfplumber, and reportlab, alongside command-line utilities like qpdf and poppler-utils, to handle both digital and scanned PDF content.
What it does
- Merges multiple PDF files into a single document
- Splits PDFs into individual pages or page ranges
- Extracts text and structured tables from PDF documents
- Creates new PDF files with custom content and formatting
- Performs OCR on scanned PDFs to enable text searchability
- Applies security features like password encryption and watermarking
When to use it
- When you need to automate the extraction of data from PDF reports
- When you need to combine or reorganize pages from multiple PDF files
- When you need to generate new PDF documents programmatically
- When you need to process scanned documents to make them text-searchable
- When you need to secure sensitive PDF files with passwords
Advantages
- Provides a variety of methods for both programmatic and command-line PDF manipulation
- Includes specific guidance for handling complex elements like tables and subscripts
- Offers clear examples for common tasks like page rotation and metadata extraction
- Supports integration with external tools for OCR and image processing
Usage examples
- “Merge these three PDF files into one document.”
- The agent uses the pypdf library to iterate through the provided files, add their pages to a writer object, and save the result as a single merged PDF.
- “Extract all tables from this PDF and save them to an Excel file.”
- The agent uses pdfplumber to identify and extract tables from the PDF, converts them into pandas DataFrames, and exports the combined data to an Excel spreadsheet.
- “Rotate the first page of my document by 90 degrees.”
- The agent uses the qpdf command-line tool or pypdf library to rotate the specified page and save the updated document.
- “How do I add a password to this PDF?”
- The agent uses the pypdf library to read the input file and write it out with user and owner password encryption enabled.
Install
Download the skill as a ZIP:
https://autogineer.com/agent-skills/anthropics/pdf/downloadUnzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:
mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip pdf.zip -d .agents/skills
Documentation by Anthropic
PDF Processing Guide
Overview
This 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.
Quick Start
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
Merge PDFs
from pypdf import PdfWriter, PdfReader
writer = PdfWriter()
for pdf_file in ["doc1.pdf", "doc2.pdf", "doc3.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)Extract Metadata
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
meta = reader.metadata
print(f"Title: {meta.title}")
print(f"Author: {meta.author}")
print(f"Subject: {meta.subject}")
print(f"Creator: {meta.creator}")Rotate Pages
reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
page = reader.pages[0]
page.rotate(90) # Rotate 90 degrees clockwise
writer.add_page(page)
with open("rotated.pdf", "wb") as output:
writer.write(output)pdfplumber - Text and Table Extraction
Extract Text with Layout
import pdfplumber
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
for page in pdf.pages:
text = page.extract_text()
print(text)Extract Tables
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
for i, page in enumerate(pdf.pages):
tables = page.extract_tables()
for j, table in enumerate(tables):
print(f"Table {j+1} on page {i+1}:")
for row in table:
print(row)Advanced Table Extraction
import pandas as pd
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
all_tables = []
for page in pdf.pages:
tables = page.extract_tables()
for table in tables:
if table: # Check if table is not empty
df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0])
all_tables.append(df)
# Combine all tables
if all_tables:
combined_df = pd.concat(all_tables, ignore_index=True)
combined_df.to_excel("extracted_tables.xlsx", index=False)reportlab - Create PDFs
Basic PDF Creation
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
c = canvas.Canvas("hello.pdf", pagesize=letter)
width, height = letter
# Add text
c.drawString(100, height - 100, "Hello World!")
c.drawString(100, height - 120, "This is a PDF created with reportlab")
# Add a line
c.line(100, height - 140, 400, height - 140)
# Save
c.save()Create PDF with Multiple Pages
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Spacer, PageBreak
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
doc = SimpleDocTemplate("report.pdf", pagesize=letter)
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
story = []
# Add content
title = Paragraph("Report Title", styles['Title'])
story.append(title)
story.append(Spacer(1, 12))
body = Paragraph("This is the body of the report. " * 20, styles['Normal'])
story.append(body)
story.append(PageBreak())
# Page 2
story.append(Paragraph("Page 2", styles['Heading1']))
story.append(Paragraph("Content for page 2", styles['Normal']))
# Build PDF
doc.build(story)Subscripts and Superscripts
IMPORTANT: Never use Unicode subscript/superscript characters (₀₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉, ⁰¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹) in ReportLab PDFs. The built-in fonts do not include these glyphs, causing them to render as solid black boxes.
Instead, use ReportLab's XML markup tags in Paragraph objects:
from reportlab.platypus import Paragraph
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
# Subscripts: use <sub> tag
chemical = Paragraph("H<sub>2</sub>O", styles['Normal'])
# Superscripts: use <super> tag
squared = Paragraph("x<super>2</super> + y<super>2</super>", styles['Normal'])For canvas-drawn text (not Paragraph objects), manually adjust font the size and position rather than using Unicode subscripts/superscripts.
Command-Line Tools
pdftotext (poppler-utils)
# Extract text
pdftotext input.pdf output.txt
# Extract text preserving layout
pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt
# Extract specific pages
pdftotext -f 1 -l 5 input.pdf output.txt # Pages 1-5qpdf
# Merge PDFs
qpdf --empty --pages file1.pdf file2.pdf -- merged.pdf
# Split pages
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- pages1-5.pdf
qpdf input.pdf --pages . 6-10 -- pages6-10.pdf
# Rotate pages
qpdf input.pdf output.pdf --rotate=+90:1 # Rotate page 1 by 90 degrees
# Remove password
qpdf --password=mypassword --decrypt encrypted.pdf decrypted.pdfpdftk (if available)
# Merge
pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf cat output merged.pdf
# Split
pdftk input.pdf burst
# Rotate
pdftk input.pdf rotate 1east output rotated.pdfCommon Tasks
Extract Text from Scanned PDFs
# Requires: pip install pytesseract pdf2image
import pytesseract
from pdf2image import convert_from_path
# Convert PDF to images
images = convert_from_path('scanned.pdf')
# OCR each page
text = ""
for i, image in enumerate(images):
text += f"Page {i+1}:\n"
text += pytesseract.image_to_string(image)
text += "\n\n"
print(text)Add Watermark
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
# Create watermark (or load existing)
watermark = PdfReader("watermark.pdf").pages[0]
# Apply to all pages
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
for page in reader.pages:
page.merge_page(watermark)
writer.add_page(page)
with open("watermarked.pdf", "wb") as output:
writer.write(output)Extract Images
# Using pdfimages (poppler-utils)
pdfimages -j input.pdf output_prefix
# This extracts all images as output_prefix-000.jpg, output_prefix-001.jpg, etc.Password Protection
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
for page in reader.pages:
writer.add_page(page)
# Add password
writer.encrypt("userpassword", "ownerpassword")
with open("encrypted.pdf", "wb") as output:
writer.write(output)Quick Reference
| 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 |
| Command line merge | qpdf | qpdf --empty --pages ... |
| OCR scanned PDFs | pytesseract | Convert to image first |
| Fill PDF forms | pdf-lib or pypdf (see FORMS.md) | See FORMS.md |
Next Steps
For advanced pypdfium2 usage, see REFERENCE.md
For JavaScript libraries (pdf-lib), see REFERENCE.md
If you need to fill out a PDF form, follow the instructions in FORMS.md
For troubleshooting guides, see REFERENCE.md
Files
- ATTRIBUTION.mdAdded by AutoGineer833 B
- LICENSE.txt11.1 KiB
- SKILL.md7.9 KiB
- forms.md11.6 KiB
- reference.md16.3 KiB
- scripts/check_bounding_boxes.pyScript2.7 KiB
- scripts/check_fillable_fields.pyScript268 B
- scripts/convert_pdf_to_images.pyScript1008 B
- scripts/create_validation_image.pyScript1.2 KiB
- scripts/extract_form_field_info.pyScript4.2 KiB
- scripts/extract_form_structure.pyScript3.9 KiB
- scripts/fill_fillable_fields.pyScript3.7 KiB
- scripts/fill_pdf_form_with_annotations.pyScript3.2 KiB
LICENSE.txt
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limitations under the License.Requirements and compatibility
Written for: Claude Code, Claude apps
Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta
“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.
Needs: Needs Python
Security
What our scanner noticed· Low risk
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Attribution and licence
- Published by
- Anthropic
- Publisher
- Anthropic (Official)
- Source
- anthropics/skills · skills/pdf · commit 2c5958e
- Licence
- Apache License 2.0 (redistribution allowed)
- ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
- Synced
AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by Anthropic or Anthropic.
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