Extract text and tables from PDF files, fill forms, merge documents. Use when working with PDF files or when the user mentions PDFs, forms, or document extraction.
Use pdfplumber to extract text from PDFs:
import pdfplumber
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
text = pdf.pages[0].extract_text()
print(text)
Extract tables from PDFs with automatic detection:
import pdfplumber
with pdfplumber.open("report.pdf") as pdf:
page = pdf.pages[0]
tables = page.extract_tables()
for table in tables:
for row in table:
print(row)
Process multi-page documents efficiently:
import pdfplumber
with pdfplumber.open("document.pdf") as pdf:
full_text = ""
for page in pdf.pages:
full_text += page.extract_text() + "\n\n"
print(full_text)
For PDF form filling, see FORMS.md for the complete guide including field analysis and validation.
Combine multiple PDF files:
from pypdf import PdfMerger
merger = PdfMerger()
for pdf in ["file1.pdf", "file2.pdf", "file3.pdf"]:
merger.append(pdf)
merger.write("merged.pdf")
merger.close()
Extract specific pages or ranges:
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
reader = PdfReader("input.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()
# Extract pages 2-5
for page_num in range(1, 5):
writer.add_page(reader.pages[page_num])
with open("output.pdf", "wb") as output:
writer.write(output)
Extract and save text:
import pdfplumber
with pdfplumber.open("input.pdf") as pdf:
text = "\n\n".join(page.extract_text() for page in pdf.pages)
with open("output.txt", "w") as f:
f.write(text)
Extract tables to CSV:
import pdfplumber
import csv
with pdfplumber.open("tables.pdf") as pdf:
tables = pdf.pages[0].extract_tables()
with open("output.csv", "w", newline="") as f:
writer = csv.writer(f)
for table in tables:
writer.writerows(table)
Handle common PDF issues:
import pdfplumber