---
name: "poppler-pdftotext-extractor"
description: "Extract raw text, layout coordinates, and font encoding from complex PDF documents."
metadata:
  author: "Poppler"
  version: "1.0.0"
  runtime_compatibility:
    - "codex"
    - "claude-code"
    - "cursor"
    - "windsurf"
triggers:
  - "extract text from pdf poppler"
  - "preserve pdf layout pdftotext"
  - "parse pdf metadata pdfinfo"
permissions:
  fs_read: true
  fs_write: "workspace"
  shell_exec: false
  net_access: false
---

# Poppler pdftotext High-Fidelity Extractor

Utilizes Poppler CLI utilities (pdftotext, pdfinfo) to extract structural text while preserving physical page layout, column alignment, and font encodings.

## When to Invoke
Invoke this skill whenever you need to:
- extract text from pdf poppler
- preserve pdf layout pdftotext
- parse pdf metadata pdfinfo

## Execution SOP & Rules
1. Run pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt to preserve columnar formatting.
2. Specify UTF-8 encoding explicitly with -enc UTF-8 to prevent non-ASCII symbol corruption.
3. Use pdfinfo to verify document permissions and encryption restrictions prior to processing.
4. Clean up intermediate extracted text buffers when processing large multi-page archives.

## Verification Checklist
- Run local linting, syntax validation, and type-checks before reporting completion.
- Ensure all created or modified files adhere to workspace boundaries and avoid uncommitted secrets.
- Verify tests or build commands exit cleanly with return code 0.