PDF Manipulation Skill

Merge, split, extract, redact, and transform PDF files using free command-line tools and libraries. Covers common PDF operations for document automation workflows.

When to use

• Merge multiple PDFs into one document
• Split large PDFs into separate files or page ranges
• Extract text, images, or specific pages
• Redact sensitive information
• Add watermarks, passwords, or metadata
• Convert PDFs to images or other formats

Required tools

• pdftk — Swiss Army knife for PDF manipulation (merge, split, rotate, encrypt)
• qpdf — PDF transformation and encryption (linearize, decrypt, repair)
• pdftotext / pdfimages — Part of poppler-utils (extract text and images)
• ghostscript (gs) — Advanced PDF processing, compression, and conversion