pdf-readinglisted

Use this skill when you need to read, inspect, or extract content from PDF files — especially when file content is NOT in your context and you need to read it from disk. Covers content inventory, text extraction, page rasterization for visual inspection, embedded image/attachment/table/form-field extraction, and choosing the right reading strategy for different document types (text-heavy, scanned, slide-decks, forms, data-heavy). Do NOT use this skill for PDF creation, form filling, merging, splitting, watermarking, or encryption — use the pdf skill instead.
Wide-Moat/open-computer-use · ★ 114 · Data & Documents · score 74

Install: claude install-skill Wide-Moat/open-computer-use

# PDF Processing Guide ## Overview This guide covers essential PDF reading operations using Python libraries and command-line tools. For advanced features (pypdfium2 rendering, pdfplumber table settings, OCR fallback, encrypted/corrupted PDF handling), see REFERENCE.md. ## Reading & Inspecting PDFs Before doing anything with a PDF, understand what you're working with. ### Content inventory Run a quick diagnostic first. For simple tasks ("summarize this document"), `pdfinfo` + a text sample may suffice. For anything involving figures, attachments, or extraction issues, run the full set: ```bash # Always: page count, file size, PDF version, metadata pdfinfo document.pdf # Always: quick text extraction check — is this a text PDF or a scan? pdftotext -f 1 -l 1 document.pdf - | head -20 # If figures/charts may matter: pdfimages -list document.pdf # If the PDF might contain embedded files (reports, portfolios): pdfdetach -list document.pdf # If text extraction looks garbled: pdffonts document.pdf ``` This tells you: - **Page count and size** — how big is the job? - **Text extractability** — does `pdftotext` return real text, or is it empty (scanned) or garbled (broken font encoding)? - **Embedded raster images** — are there photos or raster figures? (Note: vector-drawn charts from matplotlib/Excel won't appear — see "Extracting embedded images" below) - **Attachments** — are there embedded spreadsheets, data files, etc.? - **Font status** — are fonts embedded? If