📄 @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Production-ready PDF processing server for AI agents

5-10x faster parallel processing • Y-coordinate content ordering • 94%+ test coverage • 103 tests passing

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.

• 🚀 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

• 🎯 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

Real-world performance from production testing:

Benchmarks vary based on PDF complexity and system resources.

claude mcp add pdf-reader -- npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

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

code --add-mcp '{"name":"pdf-reader","command":"npx","args":["@sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp"]}'

1. Open Settings → MCP → Add new MCP Server
2. Select Command type
3. Enter: npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Add to your Windsurf MCP config:

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

Add to Cline's MCP settings:

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

1. Go to Settings → AI → Manage MCP Servers → Add
2. Command: npx, Args: @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

npx -y @smithery/cli install @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp --client claude

# Quick start - zero installation npx @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp # Or install globally npm install -g @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

{ "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

{ "sources": [{ "path": "documents/manual.pdf", "pages": "1-5,10,15-20" }], "include_full_text": true }

// 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!

{ "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

{ "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!

• ✅ 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

• ⚡ 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

// ✅ 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

The single tool that handles all PDF operations.

{ 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] }

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 }] }

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: "..." } ] 

{ "sources": [{ "path": "manual.pdf" }], "include_images": true }

{ "images": [{ "page": 1, "index": 0, "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "format": "rgb", "data": "base64-encoded-png..." }] }

{ "path": "C:\\Users\\John\\file.pdf" } { "path": "/home/user/file.pdf" }

{ "path": "docs/report.pdf" } { "path": "./2024/Q1.pdf" }

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

{ "sources": [{ "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "1-20" }] }

// Step 1: Get page count { "sources": [{ "path": "big.pdf" }], "include_full_text": false } // Step 2: Extract sections { "sources": [{ "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "50-75" }] }

{ "sources": [ { "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "1-50" }, { "path": "big.pdf", "pages": "51-100" } ] }

Solution: Upgrade to v1.3.0+

npm update @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp

Restart your MCP client completely.

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" } }

Solution:

npm cache clean --force rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json npm install @sylphx/pdf-reader-mcp@latest

Restart MCP client completely.

• 🔒 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

git clone https://github.com/SylphxAI/pdf-reader-mcp.git cd pdf-reader-mcp pnpm install && pnpm build

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

feat(images): add WebP support fix(paths): handle UNC paths docs(readme): update examples 

• 📖 Full Docs - Complete guides
• 🚀 Getting Started - Quick start
• 📘 API Reference - Detailed API
• 🏗️ Design - Architecture
• ⚡ Performance - Benchmarks
• 🔍 Comparison - vs. alternatives

✅ 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

Featured on:

• Smithery - MCP directory
• Glama - AI marketplace
• MseeP.ai - Security validated

Trusted worldwide • Enterprise adoption • Battle-tested

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

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

103 Tests • 94%+ Coverage • Production Ready

MIT © Sylphx

Built with:

• PDF.js - Mozilla PDF engine
• Bun - Fast JavaScript runtime

Special thanks to the open source community ❤️

This project uses the following @sylphx packages:

• @sylphx/mcp-server-sdk - MCP server framework
• @sylphx/biome-config - Biome configuration
• @sylphx/tsconfig - TypeScript configuration
• @sylphx/bump - Version management
• @sylphx/doctor - Project health checker
• @sylphx/leaf - Documentation framework
• @sylphx/leaf-theme-default - Documentation theme