Overview
This guide covers essential PDF processing operations using Python libraries and command-line tools. For advanced features, JavaScript libraries, and detailed examples, see reference.md. If you need to fill out a PDF form, read forms.md and follow its instructions.
Quick Start
from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
# Read a PDF
reader = PdfReader("document.pdf")
print(f"Pages: {len(reader.pages)}")
text = "" for page in reader.pages: text += page.extract_text()
## Python Libraries
## 🧠 Knowledge Modules (Fractal Skills)
### 1. [pypdf - Basic Operations](./sub-skills/pypdf-basic-operations.md)
### 2. [pdfplumber - Text and Table Extraction](./sub-skills/pdfplumber-text-and-table-extraction.md)
### 3. [reportlab - Create PDFs](./sub-skills/reportlab-create-pdfs.md)
### 4. [pdftotext (poppler-utils)](./sub-skills/pdftotext-poppler-utils.md)
### 5. [qpdf](./sub-skills/qpdf.md)
### 6. [pdftk (if available)](./sub-skills/pdftk-if-available.md)
### 7. [Extract Text from Scanned PDFs](./sub-skills/extract-text-from-scanned-pdfs.md)
### 8. [Add Watermark](./sub-skills/add-watermark.md)
### 9. [Extract Images](./sub-skills/extract-images.md)
### 10. [Password Protection](./sub-skills/password-protection.md)