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PDF reader MCP

Created 5 months ago

A comprehensive Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides advanced PDF text extraction, search, and analysis functionality.

development pdf extraction search analysis

What is PDF reader MCP?

MCP server to read and search text in a local PDF file.

Documentation

MCP PDF Reader

Features# Core Functionality

  • Text Extraction: Extract text content from PDF files with customizable options
  • Text Search: Search for specific text within PDFs with advanced options
  • Metadata Extraction: Retrieve comprehensive PDF metadata
  • Page-specific Processing: Extract content from specific page ranges
  • Text Cleaning: Normalize and clean extracted text
  • File Size Limits: Protection against overly large files (50MB limit)
  • Async Processing: Non-blocking file operations

Advanced Features

  • 🔄 Multiple Tools: 3 specialized tools for different PDF operations
  • 🔍 Smart Search: Case-sensitive, whole-word, and regex search options
  • 📊 Rich Metadata: Extract author, title, creation date, keywords, and more
  • Performance: Efficient processing with size limits and error handling
  • 🛡️ Security: File validation and path sanitization

Installation

npm install

Tools Available# 1. read-pdf

  • Enhanced PDF Reading
  • Extract text from PDF files with customizable options.

Parameters:

  • file (string, required): Path to the PDF file
  • pages (string, optional): Page range (e.g., '1-5', '1,3,5', 'all'). Default: 'all'
  • include_metadata (boolean, optional): Include PDF metadata. Default: true
  • clean_text (boolean, optional): Clean and normalize text. Default: false

Example Usage:

// Basic extraction
{ "file": "/path/to/document.pdf" }
// Extract with clean text and no metadata
{ "file": "/path/to/document.pdf", "clean_text": true, "include_metadata": false }

2. search-pdf

  • Search Within PDFs
  • Search for specific text within PDF documents.

Parameters:

  • file (string, required): Path to the PDF file
  • query (string, required): Text to search for
  • case_sensitive (boolean, optional): Case sensitive search. Default: false
  • whole_word (boolean, optional): Match whole words only. Default: false

Example Usage:

// Case-insensitive search
{ "file": "/path/to/document.pdf", "query": "important term" }
// Whole word, case-sensitive search
{ "file": "/path/to/document.pdf", "query": "API", "case_sensitive": true, "whole_word": true }

3. pdf-metadata

  • Extract Metadata Only
  • Get comprehensive metadata from PDF files without extracting text.

Parameters:

  • file (string, required): Path to the PDF file

Returns:

  • Filename, file size, page count
  • Author, title, subject, creator, producer
  • Creation/modification dates, keywords
  • Encryption status, PDF version

Configuration# Cursor Integration

Add to your Cursor settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-gp-pdf-reader": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp_gp_pdf_reader/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Future Enhancements# Planned Features

  • 🔮 OCR Support: Extract text from scanned/image-based PDFs
  • 🔮 Image Extraction: Extract images from PDF documents
  • 🔮 Table Detection: Identify and extract tabular data
  • 🔮 Form Data: Extract form fields and values
  • 🔮 Password Support: Handle password-protected PDFs
  • 🔮 Batch Processing: Process multiple PDFs simultaneously
  • 🔮 Caching: Cache parsed results for better performance
  • 🔮 Page-by-Page: True page-specific text extraction

Technical Improvements

  • 🔧 Streaming: Handle very large PDFs with streaming
  • 🔧 Progress Tracking: Progress indicators for long operations
  • 🔧 Resource Management: Better memory usage optimization
  • 🔧 Configuration API: Runtime configuration updates

Usage Examples# Basic Text Extraction

"Extract all text from /documents/report.pdf"

Searching PDFs

"Search for 'quarterly results' in /documents/financial-report.pdf"

Getting Metadata

"Get metadata from /documents/contract.pdf"

Development# Requirements

  • Node.js 18.0.0 or higher
  • Memory: Sufficient for PDF file size + processing overhead
  • Storage: Temporary space for file operations

Contributing

This MCP server is designed to be extensible. Key areas for contribution:

  • Additional PDF processing libraries integration
  • Performance optimizations
  • New extraction features
  • Better error handling
  • Test coverage

License

MIT License

Server Config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-reader-mcp-server": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "pdf-reader-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Links & Status

Repository: github.com
Hosted: No
Global: No
Official: No

Project Info

Hosted Featured
Created At: Jul 02, 2025
Updated At: Aug 07, 2025
Author: gpetraroli
Category: community
License: MIT License
Tags:
development pdf extraction