search_text
Find specific text patterns in PDF documents using regular expressions with customizable search parameters for targeted results.
Instructions
Search for text pattern in a PDF file
Args:
pdf_path: Path to the PDF file
pattern: Regular expression pattern to search for
case_sensitive: Whether to perform case-sensitive matching
start_page: Page number to start search (0-indexed). If None, starts from first page.
end_page: Page number to end search (0-indexed, inclusive). If None, searches all pages.
Returns:
List of matches with page number, match text, and contextInput Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| pdf_path | Yes | ||
| pattern | Yes | ||
| case_sensitive | No | ||
| start_page | No | ||
| end_page | No |
Implementation Reference
- mcp_pdf_forms/server.py:306-386 (handler)The search_text tool handler, registered via @mcp.tool() decorator. Searches PDF for regex pattern in specified page range, returns matches with context and positions using PyMuPDF.
@mcp.tool() def search_text(pdf_path: str, pattern: str, case_sensitive: bool = False, start_page: Optional[int] = None, end_page: Optional[int] = None) -> List[Dict[str, Any]]: """ Search for text pattern in a PDF file Args: pdf_path: Path to the PDF file pattern: Regular expression pattern to search for case_sensitive: Whether to perform case-sensitive matching start_page: Page number to start search (0-indexed). If None, starts from first page. end_page: Page number to end search (0-indexed, inclusive). If None, searches all pages. Returns: List of matches with page number, match text, and context """ try: doc = fitz.open(pdf_path) total_pages = len(doc) # Validate page parameters if start_page is not None and (start_page < 0 or start_page >= total_pages): raise ValueError(f"Start page {start_page} is out of range (0-{total_pages-1})") if end_page is not None and (end_page < 0 or end_page >= total_pages): raise ValueError(f"End page {end_page} is out of range (0-{total_pages-1})") # Set defaults if parameters are None if start_page is None: start_page = 0 if end_page is None: end_page = total_pages - 1 # Ensure start_page <= end_page if start_page > end_page: start_page, end_page = end_page, start_page # Compile regex pattern flags = 0 if case_sensitive else re.IGNORECASE regex = re.compile(pattern, flags) # List to store matches matches = [] # Character context window context_size = 50 # Search pages for page_num in range(start_page, end_page + 1): page = doc[page_num] text = page.get_text() # Find all matches in the page text for match in regex.finditer(text): start_pos = match.start() end_pos = match.end() match_text = match.group() # Extract context around match context_start = max(0, start_pos - context_size) context_end = min(len(text), end_pos + context_size) # Get text before and after match before = text[context_start:start_pos] after = text[end_pos:context_end] # Add match information to results matches.append({ "page": page_num, "match": match_text, "context": f"...{before}{match_text}{after}...", "position": { "start": start_pos, "end": end_pos } }) doc.close() return matches except Exception as e: raise Exception(f"Error searching text: {str(e)}")