PDF

Use this skill whenever the user mentions a .pdf file or asks to inspect, extract, summarize, render, or fill one.

This skill is intentionally Node/JS-only for supported workflows. Do not switch to Python, Poppler CLIs, browser tricks, local HTTP servers, mdls, strings, or ad-hoc PDF decompression unless the user explicitly asks you to debug the runtime itself.

Supported Workflows

• create new PDFs with text content
• extract text from PDFs
• render PDF pages to PNG images
• extract invoice/document fields from PDF text
• inspect and fill native PDF form fields
• place text into non-fillable PDFs with explicit coordinates
• create validation overlays for non-fillable form coordinates
• merge or split PDFs with pdf-lib

Non-Goals

The bundled skill does not guarantee:

• OCR
• encrypted/decrypted PDF workflows
• damaged/repair-oriented PDF recovery
• external CLI dependencies

If the user asks for one of those, state that it is outside the bundled Node workflow before considering anything else.

Working Rules

• Assume commands run from the workspace root.
• If the current turn already includes extracted PDF text in an injected <file> block, use that text directly and answer. Do not rediscover the file.
• Use the bundled scripts in skills/pdf/scripts/ first.
• For PDFs outside the workspace, keep the original absolute path when invoking the Node scripts from bash.
• For folder discovery outside the workspace, use bash with find. Do not use glob, ad-hoc Python file discovery, or browser tools.
• Use a linear workflow. Stop as soon as one step succeeds.
• Use workspace-relative output paths for final PDFs you expect HybridClaw to keep, return, or attach.
• Use /tmp only for temporary output when page images or other scratch intermediates are needed.
• For ordinary extraction tasks, do not probe pdfinfo, pdftotext, pdftoppm, mdls, strings, qlmanage, or browser tools.
• Before filling any form, read forms.md.
• For advanced bundled JS patterns, read reference.md.

Current-Turn Attachment Rule

When the current turn already provides a single PDF attachment or local PDF path:

1. Use the supplied local path first.
2. Use the supplied CDN/remote URL only if no local path exists.
3. Run the bundled extractor once.
4. If the extracted text is usable, answer and stop.

Do not start with glob "**/*.pdf" or ad-hoc shell discovery for that case.

Anti-Patterns

• Do not rewrite a single attached-file task into multi-step shell discovery.
• Do not keep searching after the first successful extract_pdf_text.mjs result.

Default Extraction Workflow

For requests like:

• "extract data from these invoices"
• "read this PDF"
• "summarize this PDF"
• "get the text from these PDFs"

follow this exact order:

0. If the current turn already includes extracted <file> content for the PDF, parse that and answer. Stop there.
1. Discover candidate PDFs.

find "/absolute/path" -type f \( -iname '*.pdf' -o -iname '*.PDF' \) | sort

2. Run the bundled Node text extractor.

node skills/pdf/scripts/extract_pdf_text.mjs document.pdf --json

3. If the returned text is usable, parse it and answer. Stop there.
4. If the returned text is empty or clearly insufficient, render page images.

node skills/pdf/scripts/render_pdf_pages.mjs document.pdf /tmp/pdf-pages

5. Only then use image or vision tooling on the rendered PNGs.

Bundled Scripts

Create a New PDF

node skills/pdf/scripts/create_pdf.mjs output.pdf --text "Hello World"
node skills/pdf/scripts/create_pdf.mjs output.pdf --title "Heading" --text "Body content"
node skills/pdf/scripts/create_pdf.mjs output.pdf --text "Line 1\nLine 2" --font-size 18
node skills/pdf/scripts/create_pdf.mjs output.pdf --image-url https://example.com/logo.png --text "Body content"
node skills/pdf/scripts/create_pdf.mjs output.pdf --image-path logo.png --text "Body content"

For creation tasks ("make a PDF", "create a PDF with X"), always use this bundled script or the recipe from reference.md. Never call drawText() without passing an embedded font — omitting it produces a blank/corrupt page. The bundled script wraps long lines, respects explicit \n line breaks, and adds pages automatically when content exceeds the first page. Use a workspace-relative output.pdf path for the final deliverable. Reserve /tmp/... paths for scratch files that do not need to persist after the run.

Text Extraction

node skills/pdf/scripts/extract_pdf_text.mjs input.pdf
node skills/pdf/scripts/extract_pdf_text.mjs input.pdf --json
node skills/pdf/scripts/extract_pdf_text.mjs input.pdf --pages 1,3-5 --json

Page Rendering

node skills/pdf/scripts/render_pdf_pages.mjs input.pdf out-images
node skills/pdf/scripts/render_pdf_pages.mjs input.pdf out-images --pages 1-2

Fillable Form Detection

node skills/pdf/scripts/check_fillable_fields.mjs form.pdf

Fillable Form Metadata

node skills/pdf/scripts/extract_form_field_info.mjs input.pdf field-info.json

Fill Fillable Form Fields

node skills/pdf/scripts/fill_fillable_fields.mjs input.pdf field-values.json filled.pdf
node skills/pdf/scripts/fill_fillable_fields.mjs input.pdf field-values.json filled.pdf --flatten

Non-Fillable Form Structure / Validation

node skills/pdf/scripts/extract_form_structure.mjs input.pdf form-structure.json
node skills/pdf/scripts/check_bounding_boxes.mjs fields.json
node skills/pdf/scripts/create_validation_image.mjs 1 fields.json page-images/page_1.png validation-page-1.png
node skills/pdf/scripts/fill_pdf_form_with_annotations.mjs input.pdf fields.json filled.pdf

Form Workflows

Always read forms.md before filling a PDF. The supported form workflows are:

• fillable forms via extracted field metadata
• non-fillable forms via rendered pages plus top-origin coordinate boxes

Advanced JS Operations

For merge, split, and page-copy operations, use pdf-lib snippets from reference.md.

Troubleshooting Boundary

If a bundled Node script fails:

1. Report the actual Node failure.
2. Do not immediately jump to Python or external CLIs.
3. Only enter troubleshooting mode if the user wants the runtime debugged.

For normal user tasks, the bundled Node path is the only supported path.