working-with-pdfslisted

# Working with PDFs Select the tool by operation category, detect what's installed before recommending anything, and keep a fallback ready. Covers macOS, Linux (Debian/Ubuntu), and WSL2; native Windows is out of scope. ## Step 1 — Detect environment ```bash # Python tools python3 -c "import pypdf" 2>/dev/null && echo "pypdf: installed" || echo "pypdf: not found" python3 -c "import fitz" 2>/dev/null && echo "PyMuPDF: installed" || echo "PyMuPDF: not found" python3 -c "import pdfplumber" 2>/dev/null && echo "pdfplumber: installed" || echo "pdfplumber: not found" python3 -c "import weasyprint" 2>/dev/null && echo "WeasyPrint: installed" || echo "WeasyPrint: not found" python3 -c "import pikepdf" 2>/dev/null && echo "pikepdf: installed" || echo "pikepdf: not found" # CLI tools command -v qpdf >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "qpdf: installed" || echo "qpdf: not found" command -v pdftotext >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "poppler: installed" || echo "poppler: not found" command -v pandoc >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "Pandoc: installed" || echo "Pandoc: not found" command -v md-to-pdf >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "md-to-pdf: installed" || echo "md-to-pdf: not found" ``` ## Step 2 — Categorise the operation - **Reading/extraction** — text, tables, metadata, images, PDF to plain text → Step 3A - **Creation** — markdown to PDF, generated documents → Step 3B - **Modification** — merge, split, rotate, compress, encrypt/decrypt, metadata, repair → Step 3C ## Step 3A — Reading/extraction **Table extraction