read-pdf - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: read-pdf description: Analyze PDF files with Claude document blocks. Supports page-range selection, 20-page chunking, and merged structured output.

Read PDF

Analyze a PDF with Claude's native document support and return structured output for the requested pages.

Features

Supports page range selection like 1-5,8,10-12
Chunks large selections into windows of up to 20 pages per request
Emits merged JSON, markdown, or plain-text output
Preserves chunk/page metadata so downstream tools can trace the source pages

Requirements

Authenticate with skills auth login.
This premium skill runs through the hosted Skills runtime; local installs expose only SKILL.md.

Usage

# Read the whole PDF with markdown output
skills run read-pdf -- --input ./deck.pdf

# Restrict to a few pages
skills run read-pdf -- --input ./contract.pdf --pages 1-3,8 --format text

# Ask for specific structure and save it
skills run read-pdf -- \
  --input ./invoice.pdf \
  --prompt "Extract invoice metadata, every line item, and the payment terms." \
  --format json \
  --output ./invoice.json

Options

Option	Description	Default
`-i, --input <path-or-url>`	PDF file path or URL	required
`--pages <ranges>`	Page ranges like `1-5,8,10-12`	all pages
`-p, --prompt <text>`	What Claude should extract	text + tables + structure
`-f, --format <value>`	`json`, `markdown`, or `text`	`markdown`
`-m, --model <name>`	Anthropic model to call	`ANTHROPIC_MODEL` or built-in default
`--chunk-size <n>`	Pages per request (max 20)	20
`--max-tokens <n>`	Maximum response tokens per chunk	1600
`-o, --output <path>`	Save result to a file	stdout
`--text`	Emit only the merged extracted text	false
`--help`	Show usage
`--version`	Show version