PDF Processing

This skill equips agents with the ability to handle comprehensive PDF document operations using established Python libraries. The skill provides structured guidance for reading PDF content, extracting text and tables, merging multiple documents, splitting files into individual pages, rotating pages, adding watermarks, filling forms programmatically, encrypting or decrypting documents, extracting embedded images, and performing OCR on scanned PDFs to enable searchability. The agent learns to use pypdf for basic operations, pdfplumber for advanced table extraction, reportlab for PDF generation, and PyMuPDF for complex manipulations. The skill establishes clear boundaries between simple text extraction and complex form processing, guiding agents to consult specialized form-filling documentation when needed. Trade-offs include library selection based on task complexity—pypdf for lightweight operations versus PyMuPDF for feature-rich requirements—and the balance between processing speed and accuracy when performing OCR. The skill emphasizes proper resource management and error handling when dealing with corrupted or password-protected files.