PDF Skill

When To Use

• Read or review PDF content where layout and visuals matter.
• Create PDFs programmatically with reliable formatting.
• Validate final rendering before delivery.

Workflow

1. Prefer visual review: render PDF pages to PNGs and inspect them.
   • Use pdftoppm from the bundled runtime or system Poppler when available.
   • If unavailable, install Poppler or ask the user to review the output locally.
2. Use reportlab to generate PDFs when creating new documents.
3. Use pdfplumber or pypdf for text extraction and quick checks; do not rely on text extraction for layout fidelity.
4. After each meaningful update, re-render pages and verify alignment, spacing, and legibility.

Temp And Output Conventions

• Use tmp/pdfs/ for intermediate files; delete them when done.
• Write final artifacts under output/pdf/ when working in this repo.
• Keep filenames stable and descriptive.

Dependencies

Prefer the Codex bundled workspace/runtime dependencies when available. The primary runtime is expected to include:

• Python packages: reportlab, pdfplumber, pypdf
• Rendering tools: pdftoppm and pdfinfo from Poppler

If a dependency is missing, install only what is needed.

Python packages:

uv pip install reportlab pdfplumber pypdf

If uv is unavailable:

python3 -m pip install reportlab pdfplumber pypdf

System tools for rendering:

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install poppler

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

If installation is not possible in this environment, tell the user which dependency is missing and how to install it locally.

Environment

No required environment variables.

Rendering Command

pdftoppm -png "$INPUT_PDF" "$OUTPUT_PREFIX"

Quality Expectations

• Maintain polished visual design: consistent typography, spacing, margins, and section hierarchy.
• Avoid rendering issues: clipped text, overlapping elements, broken tables, black squares, or unreadable glyphs.
• Charts, tables, and images must be sharp, aligned, and clearly labeled.
• Use ASCII hyphens only. Avoid U+2011 and other Unicode dashes.
• Citations and references must be human-readable; never leave tool tokens or placeholder strings.

Final Checks

• Do not deliver until the latest PNG inspection shows zero visual or formatting defects.
• Confirm headers, footers, page numbering, and section transitions look polished.
• Keep intermediate files organized or remove them after final approval.