A comprehensive PDF toolkit that integrates with Claude AI through MCP, enabling PDF file operations such as merging, splitting, encryption, optimization, and analysis through natural language commands.

Installation

With Virtual Environment (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/Sohaib-2/pdf-mcp-server.git
cd pdf-mcp-server
python -m venv .venv
# Windows
.venv\Scripts\activate
# macOS/Linux
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Without Virtual Environment

git clone https://github.com/Sohaib-2/pdf-mcp-server.git
cd pdf-mcp-server
pip install fastmcp requests pathlib

Installing PDF Tools - PDFtk

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install pdftk
# macOS
brew install pdftk-java
# Windows: Download from https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/

Installing PDF Tools - QPDF

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install qpdf
# macOS
brew install qpdf
# Windows: Download from https://qpdf.sourceforge.io/

Configuration

Claude Desktop (Windows with Virtual Environment)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-tools": {
      "command": "C:\\path\\to\\pdf-mcp-server\\.venv\\Scripts\\python.exe",
      "args": ["C:\\path\\to\\pdf-mcp-server\\server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop (Without Virtual Environment)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-tools": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["C:\\path\\to\\pdf-mcp-server\\server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop (macOS/Linux with venv)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-tools": {
      "command": "/path/to/pdf-mcp-server/.venv/bin/python",
      "args": ["/path/to/pdf-mcp-server/server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

Tool	Description
merge_pdfs	Merge multiple PDFs into a single document
split_pdf	Split PDF into individual pages
extract_pages	Extract specific page ranges from a PDF
rotate_pages	Rotate pages by a specified number of degrees
encrypt_pdf	Apply AES-256 encryption to PDF
encrypt_pdf_basic	Add basic password protection to PDF
decrypt_pdf	Remove password protection from PDF
optimize_pdf	Compress PDF for web/email delivery
repair_pdf	Fix corrupted PDF files
check_pdf_integrity	Check PDF structure and integrity
get_pdf_info	Get detailed PDF metadata in JSON format
update_pdf_metadata	Change PDF title, author, and other metadata
inspect_pdf_structure	Analyze internal PDF structure
extract_pdf_attachments	Extract embedded files from PDF
download_pdf	Download PDF from URL

Features

• AI-powered natural language commands for PDF operations through Claude integration
• Merge, split, and extract pages from PDFs
• AES-256 encryption and password protection
• PDF optimization and compression
• Repair of corrupted PDF files
• PDF metadata extraction and analysis
• Download PDFs from URLs
• Flexible file path resolution with multiple search directories
• Support for both PDFtk and QPDF backends
• Complete PDF structure analysis and integrity verification

Environment Variables

Optional

• PDF_WORKSPACE - Custom working directory for PDF operations (first in search order)

Usage Examples

Merge these 3 PDFs into one document

Encrypt my report with password protection

Extract pages 1-10 from this manual

Combine all my research papers into one bibliography

Split this 100-page manual into chapters

Notes

Requires separate installation of PDFtk and QPDF. Supports flexible file path resolution with default search directories including ~/Documents/PDFs, ~/Downloads, ~/Desktop, and the current working directory. Built on the FastMCP framework and provides 16 comprehensive PDF manipulation tools.