PDF Processing Toolkit

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Extracting text or tables from a PDF with its layout preserved
• Filling in a PDF form's fields programmatically
• Merging, splitting or rotating PDF files in batch
• Running OCR on a scanned PDF to make its text searchable

Example prompts

• “Extract the tables from ./reports/q3.pdf and save them as CSV.”
• “Fill in the fields of ./forms/w9.pdf using the values in ./data/applicant.json.”
• “Merge these five PDFs into one file in the given order.”
• “Run OCR on this scanned contract and extract the text.”

Requirements

• Python with pypdf, pdfplumber, reportlab and pdf2image/pytesseract as needed
• qpdf or pdftk for CLI batch operations
• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Bash, Read, Write, Edit, Glob

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Identify task — text extraction? table? creation? form? Pick row from matrix above.
2. 2Load reference — recipes.md covers 90% of tasks; advanced.md for OCR / encrypt; FORMS.md for forms.
3. 3Implement — copy-adapt recipe; verify output.
4. 4Validate — open in a viewer or grep extracted text.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 2544577. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • Bash
  • Read
  • Write
  • Edit
  • Glob

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Ships 8 files in scripts/ (Python), which the agent can run.

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

PDF Processing Toolkit loads about 532 tokens when it runs, and up to ~1.7k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 70 tokens; SKILL.md has 150 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~70

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~532

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~1.7k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

• NotePre-approves every shell command (allowed-tools: Bash)SKILL.md

  allowed-tools: Bash, Read, Write, Edit, Glob

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from telagod/code-abyss at commit 2544577, republished under its MIT licence (© telagod). 150 words, ~532 tokens.

name

processing-pdfs

description

Processes PDF files. Extracts text and tables, fills forms, merges and splits documents, batch-processes files, converts to images, and generates PDFs programmatically. Use when working with .pdf files. Do NOT use for Word documents, spreadsheets, or presentations.

allowed-tools

Bash, Read, Write, Edit, Glob

user-invocable

false

argument-hint

<file.pdf | task>

from pypdf import PdfReader
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
print(f"Pages: {len(reader.pages)}")
text = "".join(page.extract_text() for page in reader.pages)

© telagod, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 12 other files (scripts, references) in skills/processing-pdfs of telagod/code-abyss.

• SKILL.md
• FORMS.md
• REFERENCE.md
• references/advanced.md
• references/recipes.md
• scripts/check_bounding_boxes.py
• scripts/check_bounding_boxes_test.py
• scripts/check_fillable_fields.py
• scripts/convert_pdf_to_images.py
• scripts/create_validation_image.py
• scripts/extract_form_field_info.py
• scripts/fill_fillable_fields.py
• scripts/fill_pdf_form_with_annotations.py

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 2544577