PDF Reader MCP 📄

🚀 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.

⚡ 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:

Parallel Processing Speedup

Benchmarks vary based on PDF complexity and system resources.

📦 Installation

# Quick start - zero installation
npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

# Using pnpm (recommended)
pnpm add @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

# Using npm
npm install @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

# Using yarn
yarn add @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

# For Claude Desktop (easiest)
npx -y @smithery/cli install @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp --client claude

🎯 Quick Start

Configuration

Add to your MCP client (claude_desktop_config.json, Cursor, Cline):

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

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

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, GrayscaleAuto-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

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:

1. Fork repository
2. Create branch: git checkout -b feature/awesome
3. Make changes: pnpm test
4. Format: pnpm run check:fix
5. Commit: Use Conventional Commits
6. 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
• - AI marketplace
• MseeP.ai - Security validated

Trusted worldwide • Enterprise adoption • Battle-tested

🤝 Support

• 🐛 Bug Reports
• 💬 Discussions
• 📖 Documentation
• 📧 Email

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

📊 Stats

103 Tests • 94%+ Coverage • Production Ready

📄 License

MIT © Sylphx

🙏 Credits

Built with:

• PDF.js - Mozilla PDF engine
• MCP SDK - Model Context Protocol
• Vitest - Fast testing framework

Special thanks to the open source community ❤️

5-10x faster. Production-ready. Battle-tested. _{The PDF processing server that actually scales} sylphx.com • @SylphxAI • [email protected]