Agent-Skills.md

Agent Skills: PDF Text Extraction

Fast, zero-AI text extraction from PDFs that have a text layer (digitally created PDFs from Word, Typst, WeasyPrint, wkhtmltopdf, LaTeX, etc). Uses pymupdf (fitz) - instant and deterministic. Use when you need to quickly pull raw text from a known text-layer PDF, e.g. "extract text from this PDF", "read this PDF", "get the content of", "what does this PDF say", "quickly read this PDF". Do NOT use for scanned/image PDFs or when you need structured output (tables, headings, OCR, AI analysis) - use the pdf-processing-pro skill in this plugin for those cases.

UncategorizedID: henkisdabro/wookstar-claude-code-plugins/pdf-extract
759

Install this agent skill to your local

pnpm dlx add-skill https://github.com/henkisdabro/wookstar-claude-plugins/tree/HEAD/plugins/documents/skills/pdf-extract

Skill Files

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plugins/documents/skills/pdf-extract/SKILL.md

Skill Metadata

Name
pdf-extract
Description
Fast, zero-AI text extraction from PDFs that have a text layer (digitally created PDFs from Word, Typst, WeasyPrint, wkhtmltopdf, LaTeX, etc). Uses pymupdf - instant and deterministic. Use when you need to quickly pull raw text from a known text-layer PDF, e.g. "extract text from this PDF", "read this PDF", "get the content of", "what does this PDF say", "quickly read this PDF". Do NOT use for scanned or image-only PDFs, or when this returns blank text - use ocr; for headings, tables, layout blocks or AI analysis of complex layouts - use document-parse; for forms, merging, splitting or table export to CSV/Excel - use pdf-processing-pro.

PDF Text Extraction

Extract text from PDF files using pymupdf via uv run --with pymupdf.

Prerequisites

Extract text from a single PDF

uv run --with pymupdf python3 -c "
import pymupdf
doc = pymupdf.open('/path/to/file.pdf')
for page in doc:
    text = page.get_text().strip()
    if text:
        print(text)
        print()
"

Extract and save to file

uv run --with pymupdf python3 -c "
import pymupdf

doc = pymupdf.open('/path/to/file.pdf')
pages = []
for page in doc:
    text = page.get_text().strip()
    if text:
        pages.append(text)

with open('/path/to/output.txt', 'w') as f:
    f.write('\n\n'.join(pages))

print(f'Extracted {len(pages)} pages')
"

Extract specific pages

uv run --with pymupdf python3 -c "
import pymupdf

doc = pymupdf.open('/path/to/file.pdf')
# Pages are 0-indexed
for i in range(2, 5):  # Pages 3-5
    text = doc[i].get_text().strip()
    if text:
        print(text)
"

Batch extract from multiple PDFs

uv run --with pymupdf python3 -c "
import pymupdf
import glob
import os

for pdf_path in glob.glob('/path/to/folder/*.pdf'):
    doc = pymupdf.open(pdf_path)
    text = '\n\n'.join(p.get_text().strip() for p in doc if p.get_text().strip())
    out_path = pdf_path.rsplit('.', 1)[0] + '.txt'
    with open(out_path, 'w') as f:
        f.write(text)
    print(f'{os.path.basename(pdf_path)}: {len(doc)} pages extracted')
"

Get PDF metadata

uv run --with pymupdf python3 -c "
import pymupdf
doc = pymupdf.open('/path/to/file.pdf')
meta = doc.metadata
print(f'Title: {meta.get(\"title\", \"N/A\")}')
print(f'Author: {meta.get(\"author\", \"N/A\")}')
print(f'Pages: {len(doc)}')
print(f'Creator: {meta.get(\"creator\", \"N/A\")}')
"

Key notes

  • Import it as pymupdf. The old fitz alias still works but is deprecated and will be removed.
  • Pages are 0-indexed: doc[0] is the first page
  • get_text() returns plain text; use get_text("blocks") for positioned blocks
  • get_text("html") returns HTML with formatting preserved
  • The package caches after the first uv run --with pymupdf invocation - subsequent runs are instant

When another skill fits better

| Situation | Skill | |---|---| | Output is blank or near-empty - the PDF is a scan | ocr | | Need headings, tables, reading order or AI reading of charts | document-parse | | Filling forms, merging, splitting, tables to CSV/Excel | pdf-processing-pro |