PDF Processing

Quick Reference

Task	Tool	Example
Extract text	pdfplumber	page.extract_text()
Extract tables	pdfplumber	page.extract_tables()
Merge PDFs	pypdf	writer.add_page(page)
Split PDFs	pypdf	One page per file
Create PDFs	reportlab	Canvas or Platypus
Convert to images	pypdfium2	page.render()
Fill forms	pypdf	See forms section

Dependencies

pip install pypdf pdfplumber reportlab pypdfium2

Extract Text

import pdfplumber

with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
    for page in pdf.pages:
        text = page.extract_text()
        print(text)

Extract Tables

import pdfplumber
import pandas as pd

with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
    for page in pdf.pages:
        tables = page.extract_tables()
        for table in tables:
            if table:
                df = pd.DataFrame(table[1:], columns=table[0])
                print(df)

Merge PDFs

from pypdf import PdfWriter, PdfReader

writer = PdfWriter()
for pdf_file in ["doc1.pdf", "doc2.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

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

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)

Create PDF with reportlab

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Spacer, Table, TableStyle
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
from reportlab.lib import colors

doc = SimpleDocTemplate("output.pdf", pagesize=letter)
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
story = []

# Add title
story.append(Paragraph("Document Title", styles['Title']))
story.append(Spacer(1, 12))

# Add body text
story.append(Paragraph("This is body text.", styles['Normal']))

# Add table
data = [["Header 1", "Header 2"], ["Cell 1", "Cell 2"]]
table = Table(data)
table.setStyle(TableStyle([
    ('BACKGROUND', (0, 0), (-1, 0), colors.grey),
    ('GRID', (0, 0), (-1, -1), 1, colors.black),
]))
story.append(table)

doc.build(story)

Convert PDF to Images

import pypdfium2 as pdfium

pdf = pdfium.PdfDocument("document.pdf")
for i, page in enumerate(pdf):
    bitmap = page.render(scale=2.0)  # Higher = better quality
    img = bitmap.to_pil()
    img.save(f"page_{i+1}.png", "PNG")

Read PDF Metadata

from pypdf import PdfReader

reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
meta = reader.metadata
print(f"Title: {meta.title}")
print(f"Author: {meta.author}")
print(f"Pages: {len(reader.pages)}")

Fill Form Fields

For PDFs with fillable form fields:

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

reader = PdfReader("form.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()

# Clone the PDF
writer.append(reader)

# Get form fields
fields = reader.get_fields()
for field_name, field in fields.items():
    print(f"Field: {field_name}, Type: {field.get('/FT')}")

# Fill fields
writer.update_page_form_field_values(
    writer.pages[0],
    {"field_name": "value"}
)

with open("filled_form.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

Password Protection

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()

for page in reader.pages:
    writer.add_page(page)

writer.encrypt("userpassword", "ownerpassword")

with open("encrypted.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

Rotate Pages

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()

page = reader.pages[0]
page.rotate(90)  # 90, 180, or 270
writer.add_page(page)

with open("rotated.pdf", "wb") as output:
    writer.write(output)

Advanced: Forms Reference

For complex form handling (fillable fields, checkboxes, radio buttons), see references/forms.md.