A utility that converts PDF documents into clean, plain text specifically optimized for LLM processing and AI agent workflows.
Install & Download
1. ClawHub CLI
The fastest way to install a skill directly from the registry.
npx clawhub@latest install pdf-extract
2. Manual Installation
Copy the skill folder to one of these locations
~/.openclaw/skills/ <project>/skills/ Priority: Workspace > Local > Bundled
3. Prompt Installation
Copy this prompt to OpenClaw to install it automatically.
Help me install pdf-extract using Clawhub. If Clawhub is not installed, install it first (npm i -g clawhub).
Prefer to download?
Get the raw skill files in a ZIP archive.
What is PDF Extract?
PDF Extract is a powerful tool designed to bridge the gap between static PDF documents and Large Language Models. By leveraging the reliable pdftotext engine, this skill ensures that content trapped in PDF layouts is converted into a clean, text-based format that AI agents can easily parse and understand. As part of the Openclaw Skills library, it serves as a critical first step in document analysis, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines, and automated research tasks.
The tool is specifically engineered to handle the complexities of PDF encoding, ensuring that the resulting output maintains logical reading order. This makes it an essential component for developers building sophisticated automation flows with Openclaw Skills that require reading research papers, reports, or technical manuals.
PDF Extract Use Cases
- Converting academic research papers into text for AI summarization.
- Extracting content from business reports to feed into Openclaw Skills for data analysis.
- Preparing large document sets for indexing in vector databases.
- Automating the ingestion of legacy PDF documentation into modern AI knowledge bases.
How PDF Extract Works
- The user specifies a target PDF file path via the command line interface.
- The skill checks for the presence of the required poppler-utils dependencies.
- The PDF is processed using the pdftotext engine to extract text content.
- If page ranges are specified, the tool filters the extraction to only include those pages.
- The final plain text output is returned, ready for consumption by other Openclaw Skills or LLM contexts.
PDF Extract Setup
To use this skill, you need to install the poppler-utils package which contains the necessary pdftotext binary. Use the following command based on your system:
# For Fedora, RHEL, or CentOS
sudo dnf install poppler-utils
# For Debian or Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install poppler-utils
Once the dependency is installed, you can begin using the skill within your Openclaw Skills environment immediately.
PDF Extract Data Schema & Taxonomy
The skill focuses on a simple input-output transformation model to maximize compatibility with other Openclaw Skills.
| Attribute | Specification |
|---|---|
| Input Type | Binary PDF Document |
| Output Type | UTF-8 Plain Text |
| Arguments | File path, Page ranges (--pages) |
| Dependencies | pdftotext (poppler-utils) |
PDF Extract Advanced Features
- Selective page extraction to minimize token usage in LLM prompts.
- Seamless integration with pipeline-based Openclaw Skills for multi-step document processing.
- Support for complex document layouts via the underlying poppler-utils engine.
- CLI-first design for easy inclusion in bash scripts and automated agent routines.
SKILL.md
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