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oidsdevoidsdev/honeypot/skills/pdf-text/SKILL.md

pdf-text

Skill0 starsChanged 21 days agoMITView on GitHub

Extract selectable text from a PDF with pdftotext. Use when an agent needs the text layer of a PDF file.

  • Installs packages

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

3 rules. About 0 are common, 2 are distinctive, and 1 is very specific to this project.

  • ≈0

    Common · estimate

    Many files like this have a rule of this kind.

  • ≈2

    Distinctive · estimate

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 1

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Distinctive:

    If that fails, install Poppler utils:

    line 20
  2. Very specific:

    Write the text to stdout. The second argument - means stdout.

    line 34
  3. Distinctive:

    Check the output. A text layer comes back as words.

    line 46

≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 308,232 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

PDF text

Pull the text layer out of a PDF with Poppler's pdftotext. The result is plain text on stdout or in a file you name.

When to use

The user hands you a PDF and wants the words in it: a page range, a whole document, or text that keeps the visual columns. This skill stops when the file has no text layer.

Install

pdftotext -v

If that fails, install Poppler utils:

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install poppler-utils

# macOS
brew install poppler

pdftotext -h lists the flags for the build you have.

Commands

Write the text to stdout. The second argument - means stdout. -layout keeps the columns where they were on the page. -nopgbrk leaves out the form-feed between pages.

pdftotext -layout -nopgbrk report.pdf -

Limit the range. Pages are numbered from 1.

pdftotext -f 1 -l 3 -layout report.pdf pages.txt

Check the output. A text layer comes back as words. An empty file means the pages are images.

wc -c pages.txt

Gotchas

  • pdftotext reads the embedded text layer. A scanned page with no text layer produces an empty result. Optical character recognition is a different tool.
  • -layout is the right default for multi-column pages. -raw follows the content stream and is no longer the recommended mode.
  • An encrypted file makes pdftotext exit with an error. Stop and ask the user. Do not guess passwords.
  • Page numbers start at 1. -f and -l are inclusive.

Also on Honeypot — a free, open index of skills for AI agents: https://honeypot-e6c.pages.dev Image: Indexed on Honeypot

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