PDF to Text Skill

Convert PDF files to plain text format using PyMuPDF4LLM. This tool extracts text content from PDF documents while preserving the reading order and basic formatting.

Features

• Extract text from any PDF file
• Preserve reading order and structure
• Support for multi-page documents
• Optional Markdown output with formatting hints

Usage

Basic Conversion

Convert a PDF to text file:

python {baseDir}/scripts/convert.py "<pdf_path>"

Output will be saved as <pdf_filename>.txt in the same directory as the PDF.

Specify Output Path

python {baseDir}/scripts/convert.py "<pdf_path>" --output "~/Documents/output.txt"

Convert with Markdown Formatting

Use --markdown flag to get Markdown-formatted output with headers, lists, and other formatting hints:

python {baseDir}/scripts/convert.py "<pdf_path>" --markdown

Page Range Selection

Convert only specific pages:

# Convert pages 1-10 only
python {baseDir}/scripts/convert.py "<pdf_path>" --pages 1-10

# Convert single page
python {baseDir}/scripts/convert.py "<pdf_path>" --pages 5

Examples

# Basic conversion
python {baseDir}/scripts/convert.py "~/Documents/paper.pdf"
# Output: ~/Documents/paper.txt

# With custom output path
python {baseDir}/scripts/convert.py "~/Documents/paper.pdf" --output "~/Notes/paper_content.txt"

# Markdown output
python {baseDir}/scripts/convert.py "~/Documents/paper.pdf" --markdown --output "~/Notes/paper.md"

# Convert first 5 pages only
python {baseDir}/scripts/convert.py "~/Documents/book.pdf" --pages 1-5 --output "~/Notes/chapter1.txt"

Output Format

Plain Text (default)

• Clean text extraction
• Preserves paragraph breaks
• Removes decorative formatting

Markdown (--markdown)

• Headers marked with #
• Lists preserved with - or *
• Bold/italic formatting hints where detectable
• Better for documents with complex structure

Troubleshooting

"No text found in PDF"

• The PDF may be scanned images without OCR
• Try using OCR tools first to add a text layer

Garbled text

• The PDF may use custom fonts without proper encoding
• Some PDFs have text stored in unexpected ways

Missing content

• Complex layouts (multi-column, sidebars) may lose some positioning
• Forms and interactive elements may not extract cleanly