PDF Toolkit

Extract data from PDFs (text, tables, images, OCR), create new PDFs, and manipulate existing ones (merge, split). All operations use bundled Bun TypeScript scripts that produce structured JSON output.

When to use

• When extracting text, tables, or images from PDF files
• When OCR-ing scanned PDFs or image-based PDFs
• When creating new PDFs from text, markdown, or images
• When merging multiple PDFs into one
• When splitting a PDF into separate files (by page, range, or chunk)
• When the user mentions "PDF", "document extraction", or "scanned document"

Do NOT use when:

• Working with Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), or other non-PDF formats
• The user needs interactive PDF form filling (not supported)
• The user needs PDF encryption or digital signatures

Prerequisites

All scripts require Bun. Dependencies are auto-installed on first run.

Workflow

1. Identify the operation

Determine which script to use based on what the user needs:

Need	Script
Extract text from PDF	scripts/extract-text.ts
Extract tables as structured data	scripts/extract-tables.ts
Extract images from PDF	scripts/extract-images.ts
OCR a scanned/image-based PDF	scripts/ocr-pdf.ts
Create a new PDF	scripts/create-pdf.ts
Merge multiple PDFs	scripts/merge-pdf.ts
Split a PDF into parts	scripts/split-pdf.ts

How to choose between extract-text and ocr-pdf: If the PDF contains selectable text (you can copy-paste from it), use extract-text.ts. If the PDF is a scan or image (text is embedded in images), use ocr-pdf.ts. When unsure, try extract-text.ts first — if it returns empty or garbled text, fall back to ocr-pdf.ts.

2. Run the script

All scripts follow the same conventions:

bun run scripts/<script>.ts [options] <input-file>

• JSON output goes to stdout (parseable by agents)
• Progress and diagnostics go to stderr
• Exit code 0 = success, 1 = error
• All scripts support --help for full usage

3. Process the output

Parse the JSON output for downstream use. All scripts return structured JSON with consistent patterns (file metadata, page-level results, summary counts).

Script Reference

extract-text.ts — Text extraction

# All text from a PDF
bun run scripts/extract-text.ts document.pdf

# Specific pages as JSON
bun run scripts/extract-text.ts --pages 1,3,5-7 --format json report.pdf

# Per-page text to a file
bun run scripts/extract-text.ts --per-page --output out.txt slides.pdf

Flag	Default	Description
--pages	all	Page selection (e.g., 1,3,5-7)
--format	text	Output format: text or json
--per-page	off	Separate output by page
--output	stdout	Output file path

Uses unpdf for text extraction. Works with PDFs that have embedded text layers. For scanned PDFs, use ocr-pdf.ts instead.

extract-tables.ts — Table extraction

# Extract all tables as JSON
bun run scripts/extract-tables.ts report.pdf

# Extract tables from specific pages as CSV
bun run scripts/extract-tables.ts --pages 2,3 --format csv data.pdf

Flag	Default	Description
--pages	all	Page selection
--format	json	Output format: json, csv, or tsv
--output	stdout	Output file path

Detects tables by delimiter patterns: tab-separated, pipe-separated (|), and multi-space-separated. Returns structured data with headers and rows.

extract-images.ts — Image extraction

# Extract all images as PNG
bun run scripts/extract-images.ts document.pdf

# Extract from pages 1-3 as JPEG, min 100px
bun run scripts/extract-images.ts --pages 1-3 --format jpeg --min-size 100 brochure.pdf

# List images without saving
bun run scripts/extract-images.ts --list-only slides.pdf

Flag	Default	Description
--pages	all	Page selection
--output-dir	./extracted-images/	Where to save images
--format	png	Image format: png or jpeg
--min-size	50	Min dimension in pixels
--list-only	off	List without saving

Uses mupdf WASM to extract image XObjects. Falls back to full-page rendering at 288 DPI when discrete images can't be extracted.

ocr-pdf.ts — OCR for scanned PDFs

# OCR a scanned PDF
bun run scripts/ocr-pdf.ts scanned-doc.pdf

# OCR specific pages in German at high DPI
bun run scripts/ocr-pdf.ts --pages 1-5 --lang deu --dpi 600 scan.pdf

# JSON output with confidence scores
bun run scripts/ocr-pdf.ts --format json --output result.json scanned.pdf

Flag	Default	Description
--pages	all	Page selection
--format	text	Output format: text or json
--lang	eng	Tesseract language code
--dpi	300	Rendering DPI (higher = better OCR)
--confidence-threshold	30	Min word confidence (0-100)
--output	stdout	Output file path

Renders pages via mupdf, then OCRs with tesseract.js. JSON output includes per-page confidence scores and low-confidence word lists. Common language codes: eng, fra, deu, spa, jpn, chi_sim.

create-pdf.ts — PDF creation

# From plain text
bun run scripts/create-pdf.ts --from-text input.txt --output out.pdf

# From images (one per page)
bun run scripts/create-pdf.ts --from-images "photos/*.png" --output album.pdf

# From markdown
bun run scripts/create-pdf.ts --from-markdown doc.md --output report.pdf --page-size a4

Flag	Default	Description
--from-text	—	Create from plain text file
--from-images	—	Create from image files (glob pattern)
--from-markdown	—	Create from markdown file
--output	required	Output PDF path
--page-size	letter	Page size: letter, a4, legal
--margin	72	Margin in points (72pt = 1 inch)
--font-size	12	Base font size in points
--title	—	Document title metadata
--author	—	Document author metadata

Exactly one of --from-text, --from-images, or --from-markdown must be specified. Uses pdf-lib for PDF generation.

merge-pdf.ts — Merge PDFs

# Merge two PDFs
bun run scripts/merge-pdf.ts --output merged.pdf chapter1.pdf chapter2.pdf

# Merge with page selections (semicolon-separated, one per input)
bun run scripts/merge-pdf.ts --output out.pdf --page-ranges "1-3;all;2-5" a.pdf b.pdf c.pdf

Flag	Default	Description
--output	required	Output PDF path
--page-ranges	all	Per-input page selections (;-separated)
--bookmark	off	Add source filenames to metadata

Pass two or more input PDFs as positional arguments. They are merged in order. Page ranges use semicolons between inputs: "1-3;all;2-5" means pages 1-3 from the first PDF, all from the second, pages 2-5 from the third.

split-pdf.ts — Split PDF

# One file per page
bun run scripts/split-pdf.ts report.pdf

# Split into 5-page chunks
bun run scripts/split-pdf.ts report.pdf --mode chunks --chunk-size 5 --output-dir ./split/

# Split by custom ranges
bun run scripts/split-pdf.ts report.pdf --mode ranges --ranges "1-3;4-6;7-10"

Flag	Default	Description
--mode	pages	Split mode: pages, ranges, chunks
--output-dir	.	Output directory
--ranges	—	Page ranges for ranges mode
--chunk-size	—	Pages per chunk for chunks mode
--prefix	input name	Filename prefix for outputs

Checklist

• [ ] Identified the correct script for the operation
• [ ] Checked if PDF has selectable text (extract-text) or is scanned (ocr-pdf)
• [ ] Used --format json when structured output is needed downstream
• [ ] Verified output file exists and has expected content
• [ ] For merges: inputs provided in correct order
• [ ] For splits: verified all output files are present

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Fix
Using extract-text on a scanned PDF	Use ocr-pdf.ts instead — extract-text returns empty
Forgetting --output on merge-pdf	--output is required, not optional
Page ranges in merge use commas between inputs	Use semicolons between inputs: "1-3;all;2-5"
OCR returns garbled text	Increase --dpi (try 600) or check --lang matches source
extract-images returns nothing	Increase --min-size or check pages have actual images
split in ranges mode without --ranges flag	--ranges is required when --mode is ranges
Passing glob pattern unquoted to from-images	Quote the glob: --from-images "*.png" not *.png

Key Principles

1. Text before OCR — Always try extract-text.ts first. It's faster and more accurate for PDFs with embedded text. Only use ocr-pdf.ts when extract-text returns empty or garbled output.

2. JSON for pipelines — Use --format json when the output will be processed by another script or the agent. Use --format text when the output is for human reading.

3. Page ranges are 1-indexed — All scripts use 1-indexed page numbers in their --pages and --ranges flags. Internally they convert to 0-indexed for the PDF libraries.

4. Stderr for progress, stdout for data — Never mix diagnostics with output. All scripts write progress to stderr and data to stdout.