PDF Reader MCP Server

# Comparison with Other Solutions ## PDF Reader MCP vs Alternatives | Feature | PDF Reader MCP | CLI Tools | Cloud APIs | Generic FS MCP | |---------|---------------|-----------|------------|----------------| | Text Extraction | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | | Metadata | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | | Image Extraction | ✅ | ⚠️ | ✅ | ❌ | | Page Ranges | ✅ | ⚠️ | ✅ | ❌ | | Batch Processing | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | | URL Support | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | | MCP Native | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | | Local Processing | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | | No API Keys | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | | Structured Output | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ## Detailed Comparison ### CLI Tools (pdftotext, pdfinfo) **Pros:** - Can extract text and metadata - Works locally **Cons:** - Requires executing shell commands - Output needs parsing - No native MCP integration - No batch processing - No image extraction (usually) ### Cloud PDF APIs **Pros:** - Rich features (OCR, conversion) - Structured output **Cons:** - Requires API keys and billing - Data sent to third party - Network latency - Not MCP native ### Generic Filesystem MCP **Pros:** - Can read files - MCP native **Cons:** - Returns raw binary for PDFs - No PDF parsing - No text/metadata extraction - No image extraction ### PDF Reader MCP **Pros:** - Purpose-built for PDF extraction - MCP native integration - Local processing (privacy) - No API keys needed - Batch processing - Image extraction - URL support - Structured JSON output **Cons:** - PDF-specific (not general file access) - Requires Node.js 22+ ## When to Use PDF Reader MCP - You need AI agents to read PDF content - Privacy matters (local processing) - You want simple MCP integration - You need to process multiple PDFs - You need image extraction - You want structured, parseable output