pdf-to-text

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🇺🇸

Original

English

🇨🇳

Translation

Chinese

Rules for agents (read first)

Agent使用规则（请先阅读）

Best for tables, invoices, columnar/financial PDFs — layout and cell values survive.
Parse once, then default to bounded grep:
```
grep -n -i -C2 "term" file | head
```
.
Use the
query
skill only when grep would flood — a common term over a corpus too large to scan; then small
```
-k
```
, and
```
--language <lang>
```
for non-English.
Don't read the source PDF as an image to get its text — this extractor is faster and more accurate for extractable text. (For a scanned/image-only PDF with no text layer, a vision tool is the right fallback — see Troubleshooting.)

最适用于表格、发票、柱状/财务类PDF——可保留版式和单元格数值。
仅解析一次，之后默认使用限定范围的grep命令：
```
grep -n -i -C2 "term" file | head
```
。
仅当grep返回结果过多时使用
query
技能——比如在过大的语料库中搜索常见术语；此时设置较小的
```
-k
```
参数，非英文文档添加
```
--language <lang>
```
参数。
不要将源PDF当作图像来提取文本——对于可提取文本的PDF，本提取工具速度更快、精度更高。（对于无文本层的扫描版/纯图像PDF，视觉工具才是合适的备选方案——详见故障排查部分。）

PDF to Text

PDF转文本

Convert PDFs into layout-preserving plain text. Each word is placed on a character grid that mirrors its on-page position, so columns, indentation, and tabular alignment survive the conversion. This is significantly higher quality than reading a PDF directly with the

read

tool, which only extracts loose text without spatial fidelity.

将PDF转换为保留版式的纯文本。每个单词都会被放置在与页面位置对应的字符网格上，因此列、缩进和表格对齐格式在转换后得以保留。这比直接使用

read

工具读取PDF的质量高得多，后者仅提取松散文本，不保留空间布局信息。

When to use this vs. pdf-to-markdown

何时选择本工具 vs. pdf-to-markdown

Use
pdf-to-text
when the downstream consumer is plain-text only (a non-Markdown LLM, a grep/awk pipeline, a CSV-style table extractor that cares about column alignment).
Use
pdf-to-markdown
when the consumer benefits from semantic structure (headings, lists, tables, reading order). Most RAG and LLM-context pipelines fall here.

使用
pdf-to-text
：当下游使用者仅支持纯文本时（如不支持Markdown的LLM、grep/awk管道、关注列对齐的CSV式表格提取工具）。
使用
pdf-to-markdown
：当下游使用者需要语义结构化内容时（标题、列表、表格、阅读顺序）。大多数RAG和LLM上下文管道属于此类场景。

Related Nutrient skills

Usage

使用方法

Before running any commands, set

SKILL_DIR

to the absolute path of the directory containing this SKILL.md file. Use

$SKILL_DIR/bin/pdf-to-text

in all commands below.

The

$SKILL_DIR/bin/pdf-to-text

wrapper automatically installs the platform-specific binary into

~/.local/share/nutrient/cli/

from the CDN. It caches the binary and only checks for updates every 6 hours, so subsequent runs are fast. The same binary backs

pdf-to-markdown

pdf-to-text

, and

self-update

, so installing either skill gets you the same

~/.local/share/nutrient/cli/

install.

运行任何命令前，请将

SKILL_DIR

设置为包含本SKILL.md文件的目录的绝对路径。以下所有命令均使用

$SKILL_DIR/bin/pdf-to-text

。

$SKILL_DIR/bin/pdf-to-text

包装器会自动从CDN下载平台专属二进制文件并安装到

~/.local/share/nutrient/cli/

。它会缓存二进制文件，每6小时仅检查一次更新，因此后续运行速度更快。同一个二进制文件支持

pdf-to-markdown

、

pdf-to-text

和

self-update

，因此安装任一技能都会获得相同的

~/.local/share/nutrient/cli/

安装文件。

Single file

单个文件

bash

$SKILL_DIR/bin/pdf-to-text INPUT.pdf OUTPUT.txt

OUTPUT.txt

is omitted, the converter writes the text to stdout instead.

bash

$SKILL_DIR/bin/pdf-to-text INPUT.pdf OUTPUT.txt

如果省略

OUTPUT.txt

，转换器会将文本输出到stdout。

Batch directory (2+ files)

批量目录（2个及以上文件）

For multiple files, pass directories instead of individual files. The converter processes all PDFs in the input directory in parallel, which is much faster than converting one at a time.

bash

$SKILL_DIR/bin/pdf-to-text INPUT_DIR/ OUTPUT_DIR/

对于多个文件，传入目录而非单个文件。转换器会并行处理输入目录中的所有PDF，这比逐个转换快得多。

bash

$SKILL_DIR/bin/pdf-to-text INPUT_DIR/ OUTPUT_DIR/

Workflow

工作流程

Choose mode: Use batch directory mode for 2+ files, single file mode otherwise.

Run the converter:

$SKILL_DIR/bin/pdf-to-text INPUT [OUTPUT]

Check the exit code: Exit 0 means success. On failure, read stderr for the error message.
Validate the output: If the output file is empty or near-empty, the PDF is likely image-only — see Troubleshooting below.
Report the output path: Tell the user where the converted file(s) are. Do NOT read the text back into context by default — converted documents can be very large and will fill the context window. Only read the output if the user's task specifically requires analyzing or summarizing the content.

选择模式：2个及以上文件使用批量目录模式，否则使用单个文件模式。

运行转换器：

$SKILL_DIR/bin/pdf-to-text INPUT [OUTPUT]

检查退出码：退出码0表示成功。失败时，查看stderr获取错误信息。
验证输出：如果输出文件为空或接近空，该PDF很可能是纯图像版——详见下方故障排查。
报告输出路径：告知用户转换后的文件位置。默认情况下不要将文本读入上下文——转换后的文档可能非常大，会占满上下文窗口。仅当用户任务明确要求分析或总结内容时，才读取输出内容。

Troubleshooting

故障排查

Empty or minimal output: The PDF is most likely scanned/image-only and contains no extractable text. This skill does not OCR; use a vision-capable tool first.
Non-zero exit code: Read stderr for the specific error. Common causes: corrupted PDF, unsupported encryption, or network issues during first-run binary download.
First run is slow: The wrapper downloads the platform binary on first use (~a few seconds). Subsequent runs use the cached binary.
Columns look wrong: The extractor mirrors spatial layout exactly, so unusual PDF page geometry (e.g. rotated pages, two-column reflows) can produce surprising alignment. Try
```
pdf-to-markdown
```
if the document has a regular structure the markdown exporter can recognize.

输出为空或内容极少：该PDF极有可能是扫描版/纯图像PDF，不含可提取文本。本技能不支持OCR；请先使用具备视觉能力的工具处理。
非零退出码：查看stderr获取具体错误信息。常见原因：PDF损坏、不支持的加密方式、首次运行时二进制文件下载出现网络问题。
首次运行速度慢：包装器在首次使用时会下载平台专属二进制文件（约需几秒）。后续运行会使用缓存的二进制文件。
列格式显示异常：提取器会完全镜像空间布局，因此特殊的PDF页面几何结构（如旋转页面、双栏重排）可能导致对齐效果不符合预期。如果文档具有可被Markdown导出器识别的常规结构，尝试使用
```
pdf-to-markdown
```
。

License

许可证

Free for processing up to 1,000 documents per calendar month.

Commercial license required for:

processing over 1,000 documents/month
redistributing the binary
OEM/white-label use

Contact

sales@nutrient.io

for commercial licensing.

每个日历月处理不超过1000份文档时免费使用。

以下场景需要商业许可证：

每月处理超过1000份文档
重新分发二进制文件
OEM/白标使用

如需商业许可，请联系

sales@nutrient.io

。

pdf-to-text

Original

Translation

Rules for agents (read first)

Agent使用规则（请先阅读）

PDF to Text

PDF转文本

When to use this vs. pdf-to-markdown

何时选择本工具 vs. pdf-to-markdown

Related Nutrient skills

相关Nutrient技能

Usage

使用方法

Single file

单个文件

Batch directory (2+ files)

批量目录（2个及以上文件）

Workflow

工作流程

Troubleshooting

故障排查

License

许可证