mcp-pdf-tools/QUICKSTART.md

Quick Start Guide

1. Installation

Option A: Run from PyPI with uvx (Recommended for end users)

No clone required — uvx fetches and runs in an isolated cached venv:

# Bare install
uvx mcp-pdf

# With markdown_to_pdf support (requires pandoc on host)
uvx --from "mcp-pdf[markdown]" mcp-pdf

# Force a refresh after a new release
uvx --refresh --from "mcp-pdf[markdown]" mcp-pdf

Option B: pip install from PyPI

pip install mcp-pdf
# Or with optional extras:
pip install "mcp-pdf[markdown]"   # adds markdown_to_pdf
pip install "mcp-pdf[forms]"      # adds form creation tools
pip install "mcp-pdf[tables]"     # adds Camelot/Tabula table extraction
pip install "mcp-pdf[all]"        # everything

Option C: Local development with uv

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/rsp2k/mcp-pdf
cd mcp-pdf

# Install with uv
uv sync

# Verify installation
uv run python examples/verify_installation.py

Option D: Using Docker

git clone https://github.com/rsp2k/mcp-pdf
cd mcp-pdf

docker compose build
docker compose run --rm mcp-pdf python examples/verify_installation.py

2. System Dependencies

uvx and pip only handle Python deps. Some tools call out to system binaries that you'll need to install separately:

Binary	Required for
tesseract	ocr_pdf
ghostscript	Camelot table extraction
java (JRE)	Tabula table extraction
poppler	PDF→image conversion
pandoc	markdown_to_pdf
xelatex / pdflatex / tectonic / weasyprint / wkhtmltopdf	markdown_to_pdf (need at least one)

Note on the LaTeX engine: texlive-xetex alone is often not enough for real markdown docs — pandoc's default template needs LaTeX packages (lastpage, xcolor, framed, fancyhdr, etc.) that live in texlive-latex-extra (Debian) / texlive-latexextra (Arch). If you don't already use TeX, tectonic is a much better choice — it's a ~30 MB static binary that downloads packages on demand. See the README's "Picking a PDF engine" table for details.

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
    tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-eng \
    poppler-utils ghostscript \
    python3-tk default-jre-headless

# For markdown_to_pdf, pick one of:
sudo apt-get install -y pandoc                              # then install tectonic separately
sudo apt-get install -y pandoc texlive-xetex texlive-latex-extra texlive-fonts-extra   # full TeX
sudo apt-get install -y pandoc && pip install weasyprint    # skip TeX

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S \
    tesseract tesseract-data-eng \
    poppler ghostscript \
    jre-openjdk-headless tk

# For markdown_to_pdf, pick one of:
sudo pacman -S pandoc tectonic                                                 # recommended
sudo pacman -S pandoc texlive-xetex texlive-latexextra texlive-fontsextra      # full TeX
sudo pacman -S pandoc && pip install weasyprint                                # skip TeX

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install tesseract poppler ghostscript

# For markdown_to_pdf, pick one of:
brew install pandoc tectonic                          # recommended
brew install pandoc && brew install --cask mactex-no-gui   # full TeX
brew install pandoc weasyprint                        # skip TeX

Windows

• Install Tesseract: https://github.com/UB-Mannheim/tesseract/wiki
• Install Poppler: http://blog.alivate.com.au/poppler-windows/
• Install Ghostscript: https://www.ghostscript.com/download/gsdnld.html
• Install Java: https://www.java.com/download/
• Install Pandoc (for markdown_to_pdf): https://pandoc.org/installing.html
• Install MiKTeX or wkhtmltopdf for the PDF engine

3. Adding to Claude Code / Claude Desktop

Easiest — claude mcp add with uvx

# Bare
claude mcp add pdf-tools -- uvx mcp-pdf

# With markdown_to_pdf support
claude mcp add pdf-tools -- uvx --from "mcp-pdf[markdown]" mcp-pdf

The -- separator is required so the Claude CLI doesn't try to parse --from as one of its own flags.

Manual config (Claude Desktop)

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (Linux):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-tools": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["--from", "mcp-pdf[markdown]", "mcp-pdf"]
    }
  }
}

4. Test the Tools

# Test with a sample PDF
uv run python examples/test_pdf_tools.py /path/to/your/document.pdf

5. Common Issues

OCR not working

• Check Tesseract is installed: tesseract --version
• Install language packs: sudo apt-get install tesseract-ocr-[lang] (Debian) or sudo pacman -S tesseract-data-[lang] (Arch)

Table extraction failing

• Check Java is installed: java -version
• For Camelot issues, ensure Ghostscript is installed: gs --version

markdown_to_pdf errors

• "pandoc binary not found" → install pandoc (see System Dependencies)
• "No PDF engine found" → install at least one of xelatex, pdflatex, tectonic, weasyprint, wkhtmltopdf
• "Pandoc died with exitcode 43" + mktexfmt errors → your TeX install is missing format files; rebuild with sudo fmtutil-sys --all or use a different engine via pdf_engine="weasyprint"
• The tool reports detected_engines in its response — check that field to see what's actually available

Large PDF issues

• Process specific pages: pages="1-10" or pages="1,3,5"
• Increase memory: export JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx2g"

6. Example Usage in Claude

Once configured, you can ask Claude:

• "Extract text from the PDF at /path/to/document.pdf"
• "Check if /path/to/scan.pdf is a scanned document"
• "Extract all tables from /path/to/report.pdf and format as markdown"
• "Convert /path/to/document.pdf to markdown format"
• "Extract images from the first 5 pages of /path/to/presentation.pdf"
• "Build a PDF from /path/to/notes.md with a table of contents"

7. Verify the Built-in Test

Convert this README itself to PDF as a smoke test once everything is wired up:

markdown_to_pdf(
    markdown_path="QUICKSTART.md",
    output_path="/tmp/quickstart.pdf",
    toc=True,
)

The response includes detected_engines so you can see exactly what's installed on your host.

Need Help?

• Check the full README.md for detailed documentation
• Run tests: uv run pytest
• Enable debug mode: Set DEBUG=true in your .env file