pdf-tools

PDF Tools

Tools for viewing, extracting, and editing PDF files using Python libraries (pdfplumber and PyPDF2).

Quick Start

All scripts require dependencies:

pip3 install pdfplumber PyPDF2

Core Operations

Extract Text

Extract text from PDF (all pages or specific pages):

scripts/extract_text.py document.pdf
scripts/extract_text.py document.pdf -p 1 3 5
scripts/extract_text.py document.pdf -o output.txt

Get PDF Info

View metadata and structure:

scripts/pdf_info.py document.pdf
scripts/pdf_info.py document.pdf -f json

Merge PDFs

Combine multiple PDFs into one:

scripts/merge_pdfs.py file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf -o merged.pdf

Split PDF

Split into individual pages:

scripts/split_pdf.py document.pdf -o output_dir/

Split by page ranges:

scripts/split_pdf.py document.pdf -o output_dir/ -m ranges -r "1-3,5-7,10-12"

Rotate Pages

Rotate all pages or specific pages:

scripts/rotate_pdf.py document.pdf -o rotated.pdf -r 90
scripts/rotate_pdf.py document.pdf -o rotated.pdf -r 180 -p 1 3 5

Edit Text

Add text overlay on a page:

scripts/edit_text.py document.pdf -o edited.pdf --overlay "New Text" --page 1 --x 100 --y 700
scripts/edit_text.py document.pdf -o edited.pdf --overlay "Watermark" --page 1 --x 200 --y 400 --font-size 20

Replace text (limited, works best for simple cases):

scripts/edit_text.py document.pdf -o edited.pdf --replace "Old Text" "New Text"

Note: PDF text editing is complex due to the format. The overlay method is more reliable than replacement.

Workflow Patterns

Viewing PDF Content

1. Get basic info: scripts/pdf_info.py file.pdf
2. Extract text to preview: scripts/extract_text.py file.pdf -p 1
3. Extract full text if needed: scripts/extract_text.py file.pdf -o content.txt

Reorganizing PDFs

1. Split into pages: scripts/split_pdf.py input.pdf -o pages/
2. Merge selected pages: scripts/merge_pdfs.py pages/page_1.pdf pages/page_3.pdf -o reordered.pdf

Extracting Sections

1. Get page count: scripts/pdf_info.py document.pdf
2. Split by ranges: scripts/split_pdf.py document.pdf -o sections/ -m ranges -r "1-5,10-15"

Advanced Usage

For detailed library documentation and advanced patterns, see references/libraries.md.

Notes

• Page numbers are 1-indexed in all scripts (page 1 = first page)
• Text extraction works best with text-based PDFs (not scanned images)
• Rotation angles: 90, 180, 270, or -90 (counterclockwise)
• All scripts validate file existence before processing