Doc Formats
Quick Start: Extract Text from PDF
Need to extract text from a PDF? Use this Python snippet:
from pypdf import PdfReader
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
text = "".join(page.extract_text() for page in reader.pages)
print(text)Or from the command line:
uvx --with pypdf python /path/to/extract_pdf_text.py document.pdfPDF Text Extraction
Basic Usage
from pypdf import PdfReader
# Read all pages
reader = PdfReader("file.pdf")
for page in reader.pages:
text = page.extract_text()
print(text)Extract Specific Pages
from pypdf import PdfReader
reader = PdfReader("file.pdf")
# Get pages 1-5 (0-indexed)
for page in reader.pages[0:5]:
print(page.extract_text())Using the Script
This skill includes scripts/extract_pdf_text.py for command-line extraction:
# Extract all pages to stdout
python extract_pdf_text.py document.pdf
# Extract to file
python extract_pdf_text.py document.pdf --output text.txt
# Extract specific pages
python extract_pdf_text.py document.pdf --pages 1-5
python extract_pdf_text.py document.pdf --pages 1,3,5Requirements
- pypdf:
uvx --with pypdf python <script> - Works with most text-based PDFs
- Scanned PDFs without OCR won't extract text
Common Issues
"No text extracted": The PDF may be scanned (image-based) without OCR. OCR support requires additional tools.
"Encoding errors": pypdf handles most encodings, but some PDFs may have encoding issues. Use page.extract_text(layout=True) for layout-aware extraction if available.
Future: Support for DOCX, XLSX, and other formats coming soon.