pdf

CategoryOffice
AuthorAnthropic
LicenseProprietary. LICENSE.txt has complete terms
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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

python
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

python
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

python
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

python
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

python
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

python
import pdfplumber

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

#### Extract Tables

python
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

python
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

python
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

python
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:

python
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)

bash
# 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 1-5

qpdf

bash
# 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.pdf

pdftk (if available)

bash
# Merge
pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf cat output merged.pdf

Split

pdftk input.pdf burst

Rotate

pdftk input.pdf rotate 1east output rotated.pdf

Common Tasks

Extract Text from Scanned PDFs

python
# 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

python
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

bash
# 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

python
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
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