Pdf Poppler Utils

A collection of PDF manipulation tools from the poppler-utils package. Use when working with PDF files - extracting text, images, metadata, splitting, merging, converting to other formats, or managing attachments.

pdf-poppler-utils Skill

A collection of PDF manipulation tools from the poppler-utils package.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Homebrew installed on your system

Install Poppler

bash

brew install poppler

⚠️ Important Warning About curl

The poppler Homebrew package has curl as a dependency. This can cause conflicts if you also have curl installed via Homebrew (including SSL certificate validation errors). Use the system curl directly or consider alternative approaches.

Before using poppler, it is strongly recommended to unlink the Homebrew installed curl:

bash

brew unlink curl -v

⚠️ Please ask for human permission before executing brew unlink curl -v. If the human is unsure, recommend executing it (to resolve the potential conflict).

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When to Use Which Tool

Tool	Use Case
pdfinfo	Get detailed metadata and information about a PDF
pdftotext	Extract text content from a PDF
pdffonts	Analyze font usage in a PDF
pdfimages	Extract images embedded in a PDF
pdfdetach	Extract attachments from a PDF
pdfseparate	Split a multi-page PDF into individual pages
pdfunite	Merge multiple PDFs into one
pdfsig	Verify digital signatures in a PDF
pdftohtml	Convert PDF to HTML
pdftoppm	Convert PDF pages to image formats (PNG, PPM)
pdftocairo	Convert PDF to Cairo image formats (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PDF, SVG)
pdfattach	Attach files to a PDF

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Quick Reference

View PDF Information

bash

pdfinfo document.pdf

Extract Text

bash

pdftotext document.pdf output.txt
pdftotext document.pdf - | less  # Stream to stdout

Extract Images

bash

pdfimages -png document.pdf image_prefix

Split PDF

bash

pdfseparate document.pdf page_%03d.pdf

Merge PDFs

bash

pdfunite file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf merged.pdf

Convert to HTML

bash

pdftohtml document.pdf output.html

Convert to Images

bash

pdftoppm -png -r 300 document.pdf output_prefix

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Tool Details

See individual documentation files in the tools/ folder for detailed usage:

• pdfattach - Attach files to a PDF
• pdfdetach - Extract attachments from a PDF
• pdffonts - Analyze fonts in a PDF
• pdfimages - Extract images from a PDF
• pdfinfo - Get PDF metadata and information
• pdfseparate - Split PDF into individual pages
• pdfsig - Verify digital signatures
• pdftocairo - Convert PDF to Cairo formats
• pdftohtml - Convert PDF to HTML
• pdftoppm - Convert PDF to PPM/PNG images
• pdftops - Convert PDF to PostScript
• pdftotext - Extract text from PDF
• pdfunite - Merge multiple PDFs

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Common Options

Many tools share common options:

Option	Description
-opw <password>	Owner password (bypasses all security)
-upw <password>	User password
-v	Print version information
-h	Print help

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Notes

• All tools follow the convention: tool [options] input.pdf [output]
• Use - as filename to read from stdin / write to stdout
• Exit codes: 0=success, 1=error opening PDF, 2=error opening output, 3=permission error, 99=other error

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Reference: Debian manpages