PDF Tools - Fill, Analyze, Extract, View

The complete PDF toolkit for Claude Desktop. Work with PDFs already on your computer — fill forms, analyze documents, extract data, and view them interactively without uploading.

Features

Interactive PDF Viewer

• View any PDF with page navigation, zoom, and fullscreen
• Search text across all pages with highlighted results
• Select and copy text directly from PDFs
• Form field sidebar shows all fields with fill status

Fill Forms & Automate

• Fill out W-9, 1099, I-9, rental applications, and any fillable PDF
• Bulk fill hundreds of PDFs from CSV data
• Save reusable profiles for common forms
• Validate required fields before submission

Analyze & Extract

• Analyze research papers and academic documents
• Extract tables and structured data to CSV
• Compare contract versions
• Summarize 300+ page reports
• OCR support for scanned documents

Works with any PDF type

Scientific papers, legal contracts, technical manuals, financial statements, invoices, and forms. Handles fillable forms, scanned documents, and encrypted PDFs.

Installation

Claude Desktop Extension

Quick Install

1. Download the latest .mcpb file from Releases
2. Double-click the .mcpb file to install in Claude Desktop

The extension is also available in the Claude Extensions directory.

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/Open-Document-Alliance/PDF-Tools
cd PDF-Tools
npm install
npm run build:ui
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/mcpb
mcpb pack
# Install the generated .mcpb file in Claude Desktop

Cursor / Other MCP Hosts

git clone https://github.com/Open-Document-Alliance/PDF-Tools
cd PDF-Tools
npm install

# Add to your MCP client config:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-tools": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/full/path/to/PDF-Tools/server/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Usage

Ask Claude to:

View PDFs

"Open my W-9 and show me the fields" "Display the contract PDF in my Documents folder"

Fill Forms

"Fill this W-9 with my business info: Company Name LLC, 123 Main St, Tax ID 12-3456789" "Use my 'work' profile to fill this application"

Merge, Split & Organize

"Merge these three contracts into one PDF" "Split this report into chapters — every 10 pages" "Rotate page 3 by 90 degrees" "Reorder the pages so page 5 comes first"

Analyze Documents

"Summarize this research paper" "What does this contract say about payment terms?" "Extract all text from this scanned invoice" (OCR)

Bulk Processing

"Fill 50 contract PDFs using the client data from contracts.csv" "Extract data from all PDFs in this folder to summary.csv"

Password-Protected PDFs

"Read the fields from this encrypted PDF using password 'mypassword123'"

Available Tools

Tool	Description
display_pdf	Interactive PDF viewer with search, navigation, zoom, and form field sidebar
list_pdfs	List PDF files in a directory
read_pdf_fields	Read form field names, types, and current values
fill_pdf	Fill a PDF form with data and save
bulk_fill_from_csv	Fill multiple PDFs from CSV data
save_profile	Save form data as a reusable profile
load_profile	Load a saved profile
list_profiles	List all saved profiles
fill_with_profile	Fill a PDF using a saved profile
extract_to_csv	Extract form data from PDFs to CSV
validate_pdf	Check for missing required fields
read_pdf_content	Extract text content (with OCR fallback for scans)
get_pdf_resource_uri	Get a resource URI for Claude's Resources API
merge_pdfs	Merge multiple PDFs into a single document
split_pdf	Split a PDF by page ranges or at regular intervals
rotate_pdf_pages	Rotate pages by 90, 180, or 270 degrees
reorder_pdf_pages	Rearrange pages in a new order
get_pdf_info	Get page count, file size, dimensions, form field info

Development

Project Structure

PDF-Tools/
├── server/index.js          # MCP server (all tool definitions)
├── server/helpers.js         # Shared helpers (parsePageRanges)
├── ui/                      # Interactive viewer source (TypeScript)
├── dist-ui/                 # Built viewer (single-file HTML)
├── test/                    # Unit tests (vitest)
├── vite.config.mjs          # Vite build config for viewer
├── manifest.json            # Claude Desktop extension metadata
├── manifest.mcpb.json       # MCPB packaging manifest
├── package.json             # Dependencies
├── docs/                    # Maintainer and release docs
└── scripts/reinstall.sh     # Dev helper for extension reinstall

Build Commands

npm install              # Install dependencies
npm run build:ui         # Build the interactive viewer
npm test                 # Run unit tests
node server/index.js     # Run MCP server locally
mcpb pack                # Build Claude Desktop extension

Maintainer Docs

• docs/MAINTAINERS.md — Architecture and operations
• docs/RELEASE.md — Release checklist
• docs/SUPPORT.md — Issue triage

Upstream Dependencies

• MCP spec: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol
• MCPB CLI: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/mcpb
• MCP Apps: https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/ext-apps
• SDK: @modelcontextprotocol/sdk

License

MIT

Contributing

Pull requests welcome. See docs/MAINTAINERS.md for architecture details.