What can you do with this server?

The PDF Reader MCP Server allows AI agents to securely read and extract data from PDF files. Capabilities: * Extract full text content from PDFs * Extract text from specific pages or page ranges * Retrieve PDF metadata (author, title, creation date, etc.) * Get the total page count of a PDF * Process multiple PDF sources (local paths or URLs) in a single request * Operate securely within the defined project root directory * Provide structured JSON output for easy parsing by AI agents * Be installed and run via npm (npx) or Docker

Which integrations are available for this server?

Integrates with Codecov for code coverage reporting, as indicated by the badge showing coverage statistics for the project. Provides Docker container deployment option, allowing users to run the PDF reader MCP server in an isolated environment with project directory mounting. Integrates with GitHub for CI/CD pipeline execution, issue tracking, and repository management for the PDF reader MCP server. Publishes to npm registry allowing installation via npm, with version tracking displayed through npm badge. Future plans include PWA support for the documentation site, enabling offline access and mobile optimization. Uses Vitest for performance benchmarking, measuring operations per second for various PDF processing scenarios. Leverages Zod for input validation, ensuring that requests to the PDF reader MCP server are properly formatted and validated.

How do I use PDF Reader MCP Server?

1. Click on "Install Server". 2. Wait a few minutes for the server to deploy. Once ready, it will show a "Started" state. 3. In the chat, type @ followed by the MCP server name and your instructions, e.g., "@PDF Reader MCP Server extract text from the quarterly report PDF in the reports folder" That's it! The server will respond to your query, and you can continue using it as needed. Here is a step-by-step guide with screenshots.

📄 @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Production-ready PDF processing server for AI agents

npm version License CI/CD codecov coverage TypeScript Downloads

5-10x faster parallel processing • Y-coordinate content ordering • 94%+ test coverage • 103 tests passing

🚀 Overview

PDF Reader MCP is a production-ready Model Context Protocol server that empowers AI agents with enterprise-grade PDF processing capabilities. Extract text, images, and metadata with unmatched performance and reliability.

The Problem:

// Traditional PDF processing - Sequential page processing (slow) - No natural content ordering - Complex path handling - Poor error isolation

The Solution:

// PDF Reader MCP - 5-10x faster parallel processing ⚡ - Y-coordinate based ordering 📐 - Flexible path support (absolute/relative) 🎯 - Per-page error resilience 🛡️ - 94%+ test coverage ✅

Result: Production-ready PDF processing that scales.

Related MCP server: File Converter MCP Server

⚡ Key Features

Performance

🚀 5-10x faster than sequential with automatic parallelization
⚡ 12,933 ops/sec error handling, 5,575 ops/sec text extraction
💨 Process 50-page PDFs in seconds with multi-core utilization
📦 Lightweight with minimal dependencies

Developer Experience

🎯 Path Flexibility - Absolute & relative paths, Windows/Unix support (v1.3.0)
🖼️ Smart Ordering - Y-coordinate based content preserves document layout
🛡️ Type Safe - Full TypeScript with strict mode enabled
📚 Battle-tested - 103 tests, 94%+ coverage, 98%+ function coverage
🎨 Simple API - Single tool handles all operations elegantly

📊 Performance Benchmarks

Real-world performance from production testing:

Operation	Ops/sec	Performance	Use Case
Error handling	12,933	⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡	Validation & safety
Extract full text	5,575	⚡⚡⚡⚡	Document analysis
Extract page	5,329	⚡⚡⚡⚡	Single page ops
Multiple pages	5,242	⚡⚡⚡⚡	Batch processing
Metadata only	4,912	⚡⚡⚡	Quick inspection

Parallel Processing Speedup

Document	Sequential	Parallel	Speedup
10-page PDF	~2s	~0.3s	5-8x faster
50-page PDF	~10s	~1s	10x faster
100+ pages	~20s	~2s	Linear scaling with CPU cores

Benchmarks vary based on PDF complexity and system resources.

📦 Installation

Claude Code

claude mcp add pdf-reader -- npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{ "mcpServers": { "pdf-reader": { "command": "npx", "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"] } } }

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

VS Code

code --add-mcp '{"name":"pdf-reader","command":"npx","args":["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"]}'

Cursor

Open Settings → MCP → Add new MCP Server
Select Command type
Enter: npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Windsurf

Add to your Windsurf MCP config:

{ "mcpServers": { "pdf-reader": { "command": "npx", "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"] } } }

Cline

Add to Cline's MCP settings:

{ "mcpServers": { "pdf-reader": { "command": "npx", "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"] } } }

Warp

Go to Settings → AI → Manage MCP Servers → Add
Command: npx, Args: @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Smithery (One-click)

npx -y @smithery/cli install @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp --client claude

Manual Installation

# Quick start - zero installation npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp # Or install globally npm install -g @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

🎯 Quick Start

Basic Usage

{ "sources": [{ "path": "documents/report.pdf" }], "include_full_text": true, "include_metadata": true, "include_page_count": true }

Result:

✅ Full text content extracted
✅ PDF metadata (author, title, dates)
✅ Total page count
✅ Structural sharing - unchanged parts preserved

Extract Specific Pages

{ "sources": [{ "path": "documents/manual.pdf", "pages": "1-5,10,15-20" }], "include_full_text": true }

Absolute Paths (v1.3.0+)

// Windows - Both formats work! { "sources": [{ "path": "C:\\Users\\John\\Documents\\report.pdf" }], "include_full_text": true } // Unix/Mac { "sources": [{ "path": "/home/user/documents/contract.pdf" }], "include_full_text": true }

No more "Absolute paths are not allowed" errors!

Extract Images with Natural Ordering

{ "sources": [{ "path": "presentation.pdf", "pages": [1, 2, 3] }], "include_images": true, "include_full_text": true }

Response includes:

Text and images in exact document order (Y-coordinate sorted)
Base64-encoded images with metadata (width, height, format)
Natural reading flow preserved for AI comprehension

Batch Processing

{ "sources": [ { "path": "C:\\Reports\\Q1.pdf", "pages": "1-10" }, { "path": "/home/user/Q2.pdf", "pages": "1-10" }, { "url": "https://example.com/Q3.pdf" } ], "include_full_text": true }

⚡ All PDFs processed in parallel automatically!

✨ Features

Core Capabilities

✅ Text Extraction - Full document or specific pages with intelligent parsing
✅ Image Extraction - Base64-encoded with complete metadata (width, height, format)
✅ Content Ordering - Y-coordinate based layout preservation for natural reading flow
✅ Metadata Extraction - Author, title, creation date, and custom properties
✅ Page Counting - Fast enumeration without loading full content
✅ Dual Sources - Local files (absolute or relative paths) and HTTP/HTTPS URLs
✅ Batch Processing - Multiple PDFs processed concurrently

Advanced Features

⚡ 5-10x Performance - Parallel page processing with Promise.all
🎯 Smart Pagination - Extract ranges like "1-5,10-15,20"
🖼️ Multi-Format Images - RGB, RGBA, Grayscale with automatic detection
🛡️ Path Flexibility - Windows, Unix, and relative paths all supported (v1.3.0)
🔍 Error Resilience - Per-page error isolation with detailed messages
📏 Large File Support - Efficient streaming and memory management
📝 Type Safe - Full TypeScript with strict mode enabled

🆕 What's New in v1.3.0

🎉 Absolute Paths Now Supported!

// ✅ Windows { "path": "C:\\Users\\John\\Documents\\report.pdf" } { "path": "C:/Users/John/Documents/report.pdf" } // ✅ Unix/Mac { "path": "/home/john/documents/report.pdf" } { "path": "/Users/john/Documents/report.pdf" } // ✅ Relative (still works) { "path": "documents/report.pdf" }

Other Improvements:

🐛 Fixed Zod validation error handling
📦 Updated all dependencies to latest versions
✅ 103 tests passing, 94%+ coverage maintained

v1.2.0 - Content Ordering

Y-coordinate based text and image ordering
Natural reading flow for AI models
Intelligent line grouping

v1.1.0 - Image Extraction & Performance

Base64-encoded image extraction
10x speedup with parallel processing
Comprehensive test coverage (94%+)

View Full Changelog →

📖 API Reference

`read_pdf` Tool

The single tool that handles all PDF operations.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
`sources`	Array	List of PDF sources to process	Required
`include_full_text`	boolean	Extract full text content	`false`
`include_metadata`	boolean	Extract PDF metadata	`true`
`include_page_count`	boolean	Include total page count	`true`
`include_images`	boolean	Extract embedded images	`false`

Source Object

{ path?: string; // Local file path (absolute or relative) url?: string; // HTTP/HTTPS URL to PDF pages?: string | number[]; // Pages to extract: "1-5,10" or [1,2,3] }

Examples

Metadata only (fast):

{ "sources": [{ "path": "large.pdf" }], "include_metadata": true, "include_page_count": true, "include_full_text": false }

From URL:

{ "sources": [{ "url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.00001.pdf" }], "include_full_text": true }

Page ranges:

{ "sources": [{ "path": "manual.pdf", "pages": "1-5,10-15,20" // Pages 1,2,3,4,5,10,11,12,13,14,15,20 }] }

🔧 Advanced Usage

Content is returned in natural reading order based on Y-coordinates:

Document Layout: ┌─────────────────────┐ │ [Title] Y:100 │ │ [Image] Y:150 │ │ [Text] Y:400 │ │ [Photo A] Y:500 │ │ [Photo B] Y:550 │ └─────────────────────┘ Response Order: [ { type: "text", text: "Title..." }, { type: "image", data: "..." }, { type: "text", text: "..." }, { type: "image", data: "..." }, { type: "image", data: "..." } ]

Benefits:

AI understands spatial relationships
Natural document comprehension
Perfect for vision-enabled models
Automatic multi-line text grouping

Enable extraction:

{ "sources": [{ "path": "manual.pdf" }], "include_images": true }

Response format:

{ "images": [{ "page": 1, "index": 0, "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "format": "rgb", "data": "base64-encoded-png..." }] }

Supported formats: RGB, RGBA, Grayscale Auto-detected: JPEG, PNG, and other embedded formats

Absolute paths (v1.3.0+) - Direct file access:

{ "path": "C:\\Users\\John\\file.pdf" } { "path": "/home/user/file.pdf" }

Relative paths - Workspace files:

{ "path": "docs/report.pdf" } { "path": "./2024/Q1.pdf" }

Configure working directory:

{ "mcpServers": { "pdf-reader-mcp": { "command": "npx", "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"], "cwd": "/path/to/documents" } } }

Strategy 1: Page ranges

{ "sources": [{ "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "1-20" }] }

Strategy 2: Progressive loading

// Step 1: Get page count { "sources": [{ "path": "big.pdf" }], "include_full_text": false } // Step 2: Extract sections { "sources": [{ "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "50-75" }] }

Strategy 3: Parallel batching

{ "sources": [ { "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "1-50" }, { "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "51-100" } ] }

🔧 Troubleshooting

"Absolute paths are not allowed"

Solution: Upgrade to v1.3.0+

npm update @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Restart your MCP client completely.

"File not found"

Causes:

File doesn't exist at path
Wrong working directory
Permission issues

Solutions:

Use absolute path:

{ "path": "C:\\Full\\Path\\file.pdf" }

Or configure cwd:

{ "pdf-reader-mcp": { "command": "npx", "args": ["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"], "cwd": "/path/to/docs" } }

"No tools showing up"

Solution:

npm cache clean --force rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json npm install @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp@latest

Restart MCP client completely.

🏗️ Architecture

Tech Stack

Component	Technology
Runtime	Node.js 22+ ESM
PDF Engine	PDF.js (Mozilla)
Validation	Zod + JSON Schema
Protocol	MCP SDK
Language	TypeScript (strict)
Testing	Vitest (103 tests)
Quality	Biome (50x faster)
CI/CD	GitHub Actions

Design Principles

🔒 Security First - Flexible paths with secure defaults
🎯 Simple Interface - One tool, all operations
⚡ Performance - Parallel processing, efficient memory
🛡️ Reliability - Per-page isolation, detailed errors
🧪 Quality - 94%+ coverage, strict TypeScript
📝 Type Safety - No any types, strict mode
🔄 Backward Compatible - Smooth upgrades always

🧪 Development

Prerequisites:

Node.js >= 22.0.0
pnpm (recommended) or npm

Setup:

git clone https://github.com/SylphxAI/pdf-reader-mcp.git cd pdf-reader-mcp pnpm install && pnpm build

Scripts:

pnpm run build # Build TypeScript pnpm run test # Run 103 tests pnpm run test:cov # Coverage (94%+) pnpm run check # Lint + format pnpm run check:fix # Auto-fix pnpm run benchmark # Performance tests

Quality:

✅ 103 tests
✅ 94%+ coverage
✅ 98%+ function coverage
✅ Zero lint errors
✅ Strict TypeScript

Quick Start:

Fork repository
Create branch: git checkout -b feature/awesome
Make changes: pnpm test
Format: pnpm run check:fix
Commit: Use Conventional Commits
Open PR

Commit Format:

feat(images): add WebP support fix(paths): handle UNC paths docs(readme): update examples

See CONTRIBUTING.md

📚 Documentation

📖 Full Docs - Complete guides
🚀 Getting Started - Quick start
📘 API Reference - Detailed API
🏗️ Design - Architecture
⚡ Performance - Benchmarks
🔍 Comparison - vs. alternatives

🗺️ Roadmap

✅ Completed

Image extraction (v1.1.0)
5-10x parallel speedup (v1.1.0)
Y-coordinate ordering (v1.2.0)
Absolute paths (v1.3.0)
94%+ test coverage (v1.3.0)

🚀 Next

OCR for scanned PDFs
Annotation extraction
Form field extraction
Table detection
100+ MB streaming
Advanced caching
PDF generation

Vote at Discussions

🏆 Recognition

Featured on:

Smithery - MCP directory
Glama - AI marketplace
MseeP.ai - Security validated

Trusted worldwide • Enterprise adoption • Battle-tested

🤝 Support

GitHub Issues Discord

Show Your Support: ⭐ Star • 👀 Watch • 🐛 Report bugs • 💡 Suggest features • 🔀 Contribute

📊 Stats

Stars Forks Downloads Contributors

103 Tests • 94%+ Coverage • Production Ready

📄 License

MIT © Sylphx

🙏 Credits

Built with:

PDF.js - Mozilla PDF engine
Bun - Fast JavaScript runtime

Special thanks to the open source community ❤️

Powered by Sylphx

This project uses the following @sylphx packages:

@sylphx/mcp-server-sdk - MCP server framework
@sylphx/biome-config - Biome configuration
@sylphx/tsconfig - TypeScript configuration
@sylphx/bump - Version management
@sylphx/doctor - Project health checker
@sylphx/leaf - Documentation framework
@sylphx/leaf-theme-default - Documentation theme

Star History

Install Server

security – no known vulnerabilities

license - permissive license

quality - confirmed to work

How are these scores calculated?

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Related Servers

Tools

read_pdf

📄 @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

🚀 Overview

⚡ Key Features

Performance

Developer Experience

📊 Performance Benchmarks

Parallel Processing Speedup

📦 Installation

Claude Code

Claude Desktop

VS Code

Cursor

Windsurf

Cline

Warp

Smithery (One-click)

Manual Installation

🎯 Quick Start

Basic Usage

Extract Specific Pages

Absolute Paths (v1.3.0+)

Extract Images with Natural Ordering

Batch Processing

✨ Features

Core Capabilities

Advanced Features

🆕 What's New in v1.3.0

🎉 Absolute Paths Now Supported!

📖 API Reference

read_pdf Tool

Parameters

Source Object

Examples

🔧 Advanced Usage

🔧 Troubleshooting

"Absolute paths are not allowed"

"File not found"

"No tools showing up"

🏗️ Architecture

Tech Stack

Design Principles

🧪 Development

📚 Documentation

🗺️ Roadmap

🏆 Recognition

🤝 Support

📊 Stats

📄 License

🙏 Credits

Powered by Sylphx

Star History

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`read_pdf` Tool