pdf-to-text

PDF to Text — Claude Code Plugin

The agent interface for PDF to Text, the Chrome extension that fixes broken copy-paste from PDFs.

Chrome extension = humans. This plugin = agents. Same extraction engine.

Install

/plugin install pdf-to-text@JordanCoin/pdf-to-text

The engine downloads automatically on first use (~1.2 MB WASM). No build step, no dependencies beyond Node.

What you get

3 MCP tools available in every Claude Code session:

Tool	What it does
extract_pdf	Extract text from any PDF (URL or local path). Returns plain text, basic markdown, or structured markdown with TOC, headings, and token counts.
render_markdown	Fetch and parse any .md file. Returns sections, headings, and token estimate.
list_recent	Show recently extracted PDFs from the local cache.

1 skill that routes automatically:

When you mention a PDF or ask to extract text, Claude invokes /pdf-to-text:extract-pdf which calls the MCP tools.

Usage

Once installed, just talk to Claude:

• "Extract text from this PDF" (with a URL or file path)
• "Summarize this paper" (give it a .pdf URL)
• "Convert this PDF to markdown"

Or call the tools directly:

Use the extract_pdf tool on /path/to/document.pdf with format structured

How it works

The extraction engine uses a 7-level fallback cascade to recover text from PDFs with broken Unicode mappings — the ones where Chrome's copy-paste gives you gibberish. Everything runs locally via WebAssembly. Your PDFs never leave your machine.

The same engine powers the PDF to Text Chrome extension. Install both for full coverage: the extension fixes copy-paste in the browser, this plugin gives agents the same capability.

Output formats

• plain — raw text, blank lines between pages. For embeddings and search.
• basic — # Page N headers per page. Quick and simple.
• structured — YAML frontmatter + auto-generated TOC + detected headings + <!-- page N --> markers. For RAG pipelines and LLM consumption.

Updates

The plugin checks for new versions automatically. When an update is available, Claude will ask before upgrading. The engine binary updates independently of the plugin code.

Privacy

All extraction happens locally. No PDF data is sent to any server. The only network request is checking for engine updates from GitHub Releases.

License

Plugin wrapper: MIT. Extraction engine: proprietary.