PDF Processing Guide

8 steps · start to finish.

1. 1
   Step 1

   Environment Setup

   ▶

   Install all Python dependencies and verify CLI tools are available.

   echo "=== Installing Python dependencies ==="
   pip install pypdf pdfplumber reportlab
   
   # Install optional dependencies based on operation
   OPERATION="${OPERATION:-extract-text}"
   if [[ "$OPERATION" == "ocr" ]]; then
     pip install pytesseract pdf2image
   fi
   if [[ "$OPERATION" == "extract-tables" ]]; then
     pip install pandas openpyxl
   fi
   
   echo "=== Checking CLI tools ==="
   command -v pdftotext >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "pdftotext: OK" || echo "pdftotext: not found (install poppler-utils)"
   command -v qpdf      >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "qpdf: OK"      || echo "qpdf: not found"
   command -v pdftk     >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "pdftk: OK"     || echo "pdftk: not found (optional)"
   
   echo "=== Creating output directory ==="
   mkdir -p /app/results
   

   Verify Python imports succeed before proceeding:

   from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter
   import pdfplumber
   from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
   print("All core dependencies imported successfully")
   

   ---

2. 2
   Step 2

   Validate Inputs

   ▶

   Verify that the input PDF(s) exist and are readable before running any operation.

3. 3
   Step 3

   Execute PDF Operation

   ▶

   Choose the appropriate code block for the requested operation. Run the relevant section only.

4. 4
   Step 4

   Iterate on Errors (max 3 rounds)

   ▶

   If Step 3 raised an exception or produced an empty/corrupt output file:

5. 5
   Step 5

   Validate Outputs

   ▶

   Verify that all expected output files exist and are non-empty. For JSON outputs, also verify they parse as strictly-valid JSON.

6. 6
   Step 6

   Write Executive Summary

   ▶

   Write /app/results/summary.md with a concise record of the run.

7. 7
   Step 7

   Write Validation Report

   ▶

   Write /app/results/validation_report.json.

8. 8
   Step 8

   Final Checklist (MANDATORY — do not skip)

   ▶

   echo "=== FINAL OUTPUT VERIFICATION ===" RESULTS_DIR="/app/results"