PDF Processing
SkillFiles & storageProcesses PDF files. Extracts text and tables, fills forms, merges and splits documents, batch-processes files, converts to images, and generates PDFs programmatically. Use when working with .pdf files. Do NOT use for Word documents, spreadsheets, or presentations.
Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.
No other account needed.
Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.
Then ask your AI: use the PDF Processing skill
What this skill tells your AI
The instructions your AI receives, as published by telagod/code-abyss in skills/processing-pdfs/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.
Essential PDF operations using Python libraries and CLI tools.
Decision Matrix
| Task | Best Tool | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Merge / split / metadata / rotate | pypdf | recipes.md |
| Extract text (layout preserved) | pdfplumber | recipes.md |
| Extract tables | pdfplumber | recipes.md |
| Create new PDF | reportlab | recipes.md |
| Batch CLI ops | qpdf / pdftk | recipes.md |
| OCR scanned PDFs | pytesseract + pdf2image | advanced.md |
| Add watermark / extract images / encrypt | pypdf / pdfimages | advanced.md |
| Fill PDF forms | pdf-lib / pypdf | FORMS.md |
| Advanced pypdfium2 / pdf-lib JS | — | REFERENCE.md |
Quick Start
from pypdf import PdfReader
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
print(f"Pages: {len(reader.pages)}")
text = "".join(page.extract_text() for page in reader.pages)
Workflow
- Identify task — text extraction? table? creation? form? Pick row from matrix above.
- Load reference — recipes.md covers 90% of tasks; advanced.md for OCR / encrypt; FORMS.md for forms.
- Implement — copy-adapt recipe; verify output.
- Validate — open in a viewer or grep extracted text.
Library Selection
| Library | Use for |
|---|---|
| pypdf | Merge, split, metadata, encryption, rotation |
| pdfplumber | Text extraction with layout, tables |
| reportlab | Generate PDFs programmatically |
| pdf2image + pytesseract | OCR scanned documents |
| qpdf / pdftk (CLI) | Batch ops, no Python needed |
Signals
- GitHub stars
- 239
- Forks
- 32
- Last commit
- Jul 2026
Advanced
- Catalog kind
- skill
- Gateway key
processing-pdfs- Source
- github.com/telagod/code-abyss