PDF MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for processing large PDF files with intelligent chunking and text extraction.

Features

• PDF Metadata: Get file info, page count, author, title, etc.
• Text Extraction: Extract text from specific page ranges with character limits
• PDF Search: Search within PDFs with contextual results
• Smart Chunking: Calculate optimal page ranges for processing large PDFs

Tools

1. pdf_get_metadata

Get metadata about a PDF file.

Parameters:

• pdf_path (string, required): Full path to the PDF file

Returns:

• File size, page count, title, author, and other metadata

2. pdf_extract_text

Extract text from a range of pages.

Parameters:

• pdf_path (string, required): Full path to the PDF file
• start_page (integer, optional): Starting page (1-indexed, default: 1)
• end_page (integer, optional): Ending page (default: last page)
• max_chars (integer, optional): Maximum characters to extract

Returns:

• Extracted text with page markers
• Character count and truncation info

3. pdf_search

Search for text within a PDF.

Parameters:

• pdf_path (string, required): Full path to the PDF file
• query (string, required): Text to search for (case-insensitive)
• context_chars (integer, optional): Context characters around matches (default: 200)
• max_results (integer, optional): Maximum results (default: 50)

Returns:

• List of matches with page numbers and context

4. pdf_get_chunks

Calculate optimal chunking strategy for large PDFs.

Parameters:

• pdf_path (string, required): Full path to the PDF file
• max_chars_per_chunk (integer, optional): Target chunk size (default: 50000)
• overlap_pages (integer, optional): Page overlap between chunks (default: 1)

Returns:

• List of chunks with page ranges and estimated character counts

Installation

1. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Configure in Claude Code (see Configuration section)

Configuration

Add to your Claude Code MCP settings (%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pdf-processor": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["c:\\Users\\Will\\pdf-mcp-server\\server.py"]
    }
  }
}

After configuration, restart Claude Code to load the MCP server.

Usage Examples

Processing a 55MB PDF

1. First, get metadata:

Use pdf_get_metadata to check the page count

2. Calculate chunks:

Use pdf_get_chunks to determine optimal page ranges

3. Extract text by chunk:

Use pdf_extract_text with the page ranges from step 2

4. Search across the PDF:

Use pdf_search to find specific content

Technical Details

• Uses pdfplumber for high-quality text extraction
• Uses pypdf for metadata and PDF structure
• Runs locally using your compute resources
• No file size limits (processes in chunks)
• Handles encrypted PDFs (if not password-protected)

Troubleshooting

Server not appearing in Claude Code:

• Check that the path in config is correct
• Restart Claude Code after configuration changes
• Check Python is accessible from command line

Extraction issues:

• Scanned PDFs may have poor text extraction (OCR not yet implemented)
• Some PDFs may have unusual encoding