jackiexiao/jackie-skills-starter/jackiexiao-jackie-skills-starter-pdf

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Use this skill whenever the user wants to work with PDF files: read/extract, merge/split, rotate, watermark, create, fill forms, encrypt/decrypt, image extraction, and OCR.

Install

npx vskill@latest install jackiexiao/jackie-skills-starter/jackiexiao-jackie-skills-starter-pdf

SKILL.md

(中文)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

TaskBest ToolCommand/Code
Merge PDFspypdfwriter.add_page(page)
Split PDFspypdfOne page per file
Extract textpdfplumberpage.extract_text()
Extract tablespdfplumberpage.extract_tables()
Create PDFsreportlabCanvas or Platypus
Command line mergeqpdfqpdf --empty --pages ...
OCR scanned PDFspytesseractConvert to image first
Fill PDF formspdf-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

Security

  • Security scanPassed, 100 of 100Pattern checks on the skill's files.
  • Model reviewPassed

Quality evaluation

  • Task evaluationNot runNo evaluation yet. Run one in Skill Studio.

Source

Popularity

Repository stars
1
7-day trend score
3

Stars and forks are for the whole GitHub repository, not this skill alone. Refreshed 24 Mar 2026, 7 months ago.

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