Files
pdfcraft/crates/automation
9f04acccef M10: OCR engines, confidence, preprocessing and a review workflow (#977)
* M10.20: plan Unicode text for OCR output in Type3 faces (fonts, edit)

OCR output used to flatten every character beyond WinAnsi to a silent `?`. This
adds the two pieces that let the OCR layers write the recognized words as they
are; the OCR code that uses them follows in M10.21.

pdfcraft-fonts
- `TextPlan::for_words` maps each word to the standard Helvetica when WinAnsi
  covers it, else to Type3 fonts drawn from the craft-fonts faces (the Japanese
  document face first, then the rest of the build input). Characters no face
  has a glyph for are counted (`missing`), never dropped silently. At most 240
  characters per font and 2400 per plan, so one hostile word cannot balloon.
- Which face has which character is asked once per (face, character) for a plan,
  not once per word.
- `face_has`, `craft_glyph`, `win_ansi_char`, `fits_win_ansi` are public for it.

pdfcraft-edit
- `add_type3_fonts` / `stamp_with_fonts` register a plan's fonts on a page under
  a free `PCOcr`, `PCOcr1`, ... name, build each font once and share the object
  with later pages. A shared face is registered under a free name on a later
  page that already has a font of the name it was given first, instead of
  replacing that page's own font.
- The fonts carry real advances and a ToUnicode CMap, so extraction reads the
  text back.

pdfcraft-redact
- A test shows a hand-built Type3 text layer (the shape the OCR output writes) is
  redacted like any other text and the verifier passes.

Tests: pdfcraft-fonts 62 passed, pdfcraft-edit 129 passed, pdfcraft-redact 33
passed; clippy -D warnings clean on the three crates. The name-reuse and the
redaction tests build their fonts by hand, so they run without the craft-fonts
build input; the tests that plan real faces skip without it and were not run in
this commit's own check.

* M12: give the hostile-XFA open test more room on a loaded machine

The test opens a form whose calculate script sets a value 50 000 times, against
the one-second budget of an unasked script and a five-second wall-clock bound
on the open. Both sit close to what a machine running several suites at once
can take, so the test can fail without anything being wrong.

It now runs 20 000 iterations (the total is 19999) and allows 30 seconds, which
still fails for a script that hangs or is not capped. Test-only; unrelated to
the OCR work in this series, so it is a commit of its own.

Tests: both hostile_xfa tests in pdfcraft-engine pass.

* M10.21: pluggable OCR engines, preprocessing, review sessions and the OCR tools (ocr, engine, create, automation)

Scan & OCR gets a second engine, optional raster clean-up, a review step before
anything is applied, editable output and a batch mode, headlessly first: the
interface for them follows in M10.22.

pdfcraft-ocr
- A `Recognizer` trait with two engines: the built-in ocrs (moved out of lib.rs)
  and the installed tesseract program, run as a fenced external process: fixed
  argv, allow-listed language codes, a private temp directory (mode 0700 on
  Unix), 120 s timeout, 64 MiB output cap, 50 000-word reading cap. A location
  from PDFCRAFT_TESSERACT is validated (absolute, existing, executable) and an
  invalid one fails closed instead of falling back to the PATH. `--list-langs`
  and `--version` are read from stdout or, for older versions, stderr.
- Strategies: PrimaryOnly, ConfidenceWeighted (the second engine joins when the
  first reading's mean is under 70 or unknown) and a ROVER merge (higher
  confidence wins per word; against an ocrs word of unknown confidence a
  tesseract word wins only at 70 or more; capped at 100 M comparisons; a failing
  partner degrades to the primary with a note).
- Preprocessing: opt-in auto-rotate, deskew, denoise and binarize on the RGBA
  raster, each with an exact inverse so word boxes map back to the scan. The
  300 dpi normalization the steps are calibrated for runs only when a step is
  on: with every step off the render is read as rendered, as before. (Enlarging
  a 72 dpi render 4x on its own made the models read "due: €250" as "ue: ?250".)
  `OcrImage` is validated by construction (side and 64 MP area caps, checked
  before any buffer is allocated, including by the resize).
- Confidence bands (High >= 90, Medium 70-89, Low < 70) drive review.

pdfcraft-engine, pdfcraft-create
- `OcrSettings` gains engine, strategy, the four steps, output mode, region, the
  skip flags and the low-confidence threshold; Automatic reads confidence
  weighted unless a strategy is chosen.
- A recognition is a session: the document guard refuses a stale result with its
  reason, pages can be applied one at a time (the guard is taken again after each
  applied page), and applying is one undoable step. A per-language dictionary
  (a plain-text file: words added from any document stay on disk after it closes).
- Output is searchable (an invisible layer) or a NEW editable document of visible
  text at the recognized boxes (`create::from_contents`); words beyond WinAnsi use
  the Type3 faces of M10.20 in both, with the shared plan across pages.
- Engine discovery never blocks the interface: results are cached, a stale
  answer is shown while a background probe retries, and the models search and
  `--version` are cached. Batch: pages or files that already have text are
  skipped unless forced, and inputs sharing a file name are found up front.

pdfcraft-automation
- ocr_recognize (engine, strategy, steps, region, output mode), ocr_words (with a
  retained review handle), ocr_review_apply, ocr_dictionary, ocr_status and
  ocr_recognize_files. The editable `out` must be a new file inside --root and is
  refused for a searchable run (it used to be ignored), two batch inputs of one
  file name are refused before anything is read, and the batch folder is checked
  for existing outputs.

pdfcraft-ui-egui
- Only what the new API needs: the Recognize Text dialog reads with
  `recognizers(&settings)`. `ocr.correct` is registered with its label in every
  catalog; the screen itself is M10.22.

Tests: pdfcraft-ocr 78 passed; pdfcraft-create passed; pdfcraft-engine and
pdfcraft-automation 450 passed and 1 failed (the automation lib 17, automation.rs
157, hostile_args 2 among them); pdfcraft-ui-egui lib + ocr + control tests 391
passed; clippy -D warnings clean on the five crates. The one failure is in a
test this commit does not change:
recognize_text_makes_a_scanned_page_searchable fails where the models are
installed (they read "quick" as "auick" at that render size); the roadmap on main
already records it. The real tesseract binary ran in
tesseract::tests::recognize_runs_the_installed_binary (tesseract 5.4.0, PATH).

* M10.22: OCR Verify screen, the Recognize Text options and the interface catalogs (ui-egui)

Scan & OCR ▸ Correct recognized text: a full-window screen where a recognition
is reviewed before anything is applied, plus the dialog and batch options for
the engines of M10.21.

OCR Verify screen
- Four panes: the page list, the source page with confidence-coloured word boxes
  (click to select, drag to draw a region), the recognized text, and a zoom plus
  word inspector. Corrections commit on Enter (an empty commit removes the word),
  Remove/Restore, "+ Dictionary" (a per-language file in the preferences folder,
  so a word added from a document stays on disk after it closes), per-word and
  per-page Verified, F8 / Shift+F8 walk the low-confidence words, Ctrl+T marks the
  page reviewed, Ctrl+Tab moves the pane focus, and review edits undo within the
  panel.
- Re-OCR of the whole page or a drawn region. A region re-read moves the review
  marks of the words it keeps to their new positions and selects the first new
  word; a whole-page re-read clears that page's marks (and the undo brings them
  back). The region outline is scaled onto the pane, not mapped through user
  space again, so it is right on rotated and cropped pages.
- Accept / Reject per page or whole. Pages accepted one at a time each apply once
  (the document guard is taken again after each applied page; an edit made
  elsewhere in between is still refused with its reason), and Accept in
  searchable mode is one undoable step. Editable mode writes a NEW
  `<name>_ocr.pdf` through a save dialog and never the source. A real Cancel
  keeps the pages already read.
- The engine and strategy menus disable a choice that cannot run and say why;
  the check never waits on a process (a background probe fills a cache), and
  choosing Automatic moves "Primary only" to Confidence weighted.

Recognize Text dialog and batch
- Engine, strategy, the four clean-up steps and the skip flags are remembered with
  the other choices (a saved Automatic without a strategy reads confidence
  weighted). The batch refuses two inputs of one file name and existing outputs
  before reading anything, notes low-confidence pages at the settings' threshold,
  and its toast has a Cancel (the file in flight finishes).

Catalogs and attribution
- The 90 new interface strings are in all 21 catalogs (the Lithuanian ones were
  written without native review, and the Bulgarian ones avoid U+045D, which the
  bundled monospace face lacks). ATTRIBUTION.toml carries the new hashes, a
  note on the Lithuanian entries and the README screenshot; ATTRIBUTION.md is
  regenerated.
- README: a screenshot of the Verify screen, taken with
  `cargo xtask screenshots` from a synthetic scan (`shot --ocr-verify on`) built
  from allowed assets; the page reads it with the real engines.

Tests: pdfcraft-ui-egui lib 373 passed (1 ignored: the Windows hinting
measurement probe), tests ocr 6, control 46, fonts 9; clippy -D warnings clean on
the engine, ui-egui, pdfcraft and xtask packages; `cargo xtask assets` ok. The
review state machine has unit tests for every fix above; each was seen failing
with its fix reverted.

* M10.23: parity entries, roadmap and localization notes for the OCR workflow

Records what M10.20-M10.22 ship, and what they do not.

parity/acrobat-features.toml
- Status changes against main: ocr.rotation-detection and ocr.deskew planned ->
  shipped (the opt-in steps of M10.21, with their tests); ocr.correct-recognized-
  text and ocr.ocr-engines planned -> partial. Other Area I entries get their
  evidence and notes brought up to date.
- ocr.correct-recognized-text: the evidence includes the one-page-at-a-time accept
  and the region re-read tests; the notes say what the headless tools cover
  (ocr_words with a retained review, ocr_review_apply through the same stale-
  document guard, ocr_dictionary) and what is still UI-only (suggestions,
  per-word Verified marks, region re-reads).
- ocr.ocr-engines stays partial rather than shipped: part of its evidence is
  conditional (the real-binary test runs only where tesseract is installed and
  skips elsewhere, and the process-level tests are Unix-only). It cites the tests
  that always run (location validation and the fail-closed rule, --list-langs
  parsing from stdout or stderr, the merge rules, the default strategy) and says
  which part is not proven everywhere.
- `cargo xtask parity`: area I 32.7% -> 44.2% weighted (5 -> 7 shipped, 7 -> 9
  partial); overall 52.8% -> 53.0% shipped and 58.2% -> 58.5% weighted.

ROADMAP.md
- One progress-log entry (2026-10-13, newest first) and the banner line. It says
  the catalogs are 21 with the Lithuanian additions not natively reviewed, that
  the end-to-end redaction test of the Type3 layer needs the craft-fonts build
  input, and that recognize_text_makes_a_scanned_page_searchable still fails where
  the models are installed, as main's log already records.

docs/localization.md, docs/localization-parity.md
- The Lithuanian entry count (2,578 -> 2,668) and the counts of the other
  catalogs that carry entry counts are re-measured with the 90 new entries; the
  Lithuanian OCR entries are marked as not natively reviewed.

Checked: `cargo xtask parity` (numbers above, evidence tests exist) and
`cargo xtask assets` pass on this tree.

* M10.24: ocr: apply a late result only to the document it was read from

The Recognize Text dialog closes on Go, so the document can be edited, or have
text redacted, while a long run is still reading. The result was applied
without the stale check the tools and the Verify screen use, so words read
before a redaction could be written back as invisible text. The run now keeps
its guard and applies through the checked path.

Accept with the editable output in the Verify screen had the same gap (Exit
keeps the review open): it now refuses when the document changed since the
review started.

Both new tests fail with their guard switched off.

* M10.25: ocr: ocr_dictionary takes dictionary file names only

Updating sorts, lower-cases and rewrites the file it is given, so pointed at
.env or a README it would corrupt it. The tool now accepts only
ocr-dictionary-<language>.txt style names, for reading as well as writing.

The size-limit test used a file name the rule now refuses first, so it renamed
its fixture to keep testing the size limit. The new test fails with the rule
switched off.

* M10.26: pt-BR: keep (s) on the word counts and say mecanismo for engine

Two review fixes from a native speaker: the two word(s) lines had lost their
(s), so a count of 1 read as 1 palavras, and engine was translated both as
motor and mecanismo. Mecanismo is the Brazilian word for a software engine and
two lines already used it, so the other six now match.

* M10: fit the rebased OCR workflow to current main's structure

* Fix OCR workflow issues from the review

Honor the Recognize dialog's editable-output choice: its result opens in
the review screen (whose Accept writes the editable document) instead of
an invisible layer. Make page acceptance idempotent: a second Accept
entire page never appends the OCR layer twice and keeps later
corrections. Move page and region re-OCR onto a worker thread with a
status line and a cancel that discards the reading. Skip the Tesseract
probe for jobs that name their engines. Bound Tesseract's stderr while
the child runs, not only after it exits. Surface the editable output's
substitution notes in the tools' and the run's results.

Also repair the OCR batch tool against the current structure: inputs are
held to the read root again, and a batch whose inputs share an output
name is refused before the output folder is created, compared the way
the default filesystem compares names; and the editable writer test's
word stays inside the fixture's pages.

* Apply pre-review fixes to the OCR workflow

Hold the automation OCR tools to the document's copying permission, as
the other text tools are: the recognized text is left out of the
results when copying is forbidden, and the paths that carry the words
out of the document (the editable output, the review word list) are
refused. Mark the ocr_dictionary tool as overwriting its path. Close
the searchable layer's graphics state around its invisible text so the
rendering mode cannot leak into later content. Read the OCR user
dictionary folder from the portable data folder in portable mode, like
the recovery store does. Resolve the attribution manifest's leftover
conflict markers and regenerate the generated attribution. Describe the
review flow, the searchable layer's Type3 fonts and the parity evidence
references accurately, and drop an undeclared copy of the recovery
module.

* OCR: reject readings that exceed the word limit

Assisted-by: OpenAI Codex

* OCR: new documents go through the page tree builder main added

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* OCR: review notes and lints

The editable output refuses a file created during recognition. ocr_words takes
skip_text_pages and force_ocr. Automatic OCR checks the engine it will use. The
stderr test stays below the kill cap, and a failed --ocr-verify shot exits with
an error.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* OCR: restore the Verify screenshot attribution, follow the moved constants

The merge dropped the screenshot row with the translation rows. The model
filename constants live in ocrs.rs now, so the license check reads them there.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Attribution: the Verify screenshot entry goes after the header comment

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Attribution: the screenshot row in the table follows the manifest order

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: eliets2 <287273517+eliets2@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: FredApps <FredApps@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: FredApps <153173854+FredApps@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-11-05 23:39:55 +01:00
..

pdfcraft-automation

Agent control for PdfCraft: a headless tool table over the engine, and an opt-in MCP server.

  • Layer: L7 (architecture §13), but headless. It depends on engine, render and organize, never on a UI toolkit.
  • Status: over a hundred tools; pdfcraft-cli tools lists the current set with their schemas (the count isn't repeated here, so it can't go stale). They cover inspection, rendering, text, page edits and organizing, page labels, bookmarks, comments and their review, form filling and authoring (fields, properties, scripts, data exchange, detection), redaction and sanitizing, password protection and signatures, calibrated 2D measurements and CSV export, adding text, images, links and stamps, optimizing, OCR, printing, export, metadata, undo/redo, save, combine, extract and split. Comment tools take geometry in the same top-left-origin points as everything else, and comment_add can mark text by searching for it (find). The MCP server also serves the open documents as resources, page images included. The running app's UI is driven separately, through the ui.* control channel in pdfcraft-ui-egui.

fill_sign_add text accepts line breaks, including blank lines. Its typewriter box grows to hold all wrapped rows, and saving/reopening preserves the contents and appearance.

API

let mut a = Automation::new().with_root("/work")?;      // optional: confine all paths
let doc = a.call("doc_open", &json!({ "path": "in.pdf" }))?;   // Vec<Content>
a.write_output("page1.png", &png)?;                      // save a result yourself, under the same root rules
tools() -> Vec<ToolDef>                                  // name, title, description, input_schema, read_only, destructive, command
mcp::McpServer::new(a).serve(stdin, stdout)?             // newline-delimited JSON-RPC 2.0

content_update.rotate rotates an added image counter-clockwise by an integer multiple of 90 degrees. Large positive and negative signed 64-bit angles are normalized before combining them with the image's current orientation. Full turns retain its appearance, rectangle, crop and flips. Angles that are not multiples of 90 are refused without changing the document or its undo/redo history.

page_add_text, content_update and text_edit take per-line aligns. An "inherit" entry follows the box-level align; legacy null entries remain accepted with the same meaning.

Content is Json(Value) or Png { data, width, height }. Errors are UnknownTool, InvalidArgs (the call didn't match the schema) or Failed (a readable message for the agent).

Conventions

  • Tool names are snake_case (page_rotate): MCP clients reject dots. ToolDef::command links a tool to the registry id it automates (page.rotate), and command_list reports the link.
  • Pages and positions are 1-based. Rectangles are PDF points with the origin at the top-left of the displayed page.
  • Unknown arguments are rejected, so typos fail loudly.
  • Tools that change a document return its summary (doc, pages, dirty, undo, redo, …).
  • comment_image_preview returns JSON and a PNG: layer: "background" (the default) gives the page without the selected image signature/initials; layer: "image" gives its embedded image with alpha. The metadata supplies its displayed rectangle, document rotation, image_rotation (how far clockwise the image is shown turned: 0 for one placed by PdfCraft, which keeps it upright as displayed) and annotation opacity. Each result can be saved with the CLI's --out. Cache the background and transform the image for live movement/resizing; comment_edit commits the final geometry in one undo step. Previewing never changes the document.
  • For proportional image signature resizing, use the embedded image layer's width/height ratio rather than a previously stretched annotation rectangle. The GUI preserves this ratio at corners with the opposite corner anchored; edge midpoint handles change only their own axis. comment_edit accepts the resulting rectangle.
  • doc_close refuses to drop unsaved changes unless discard_changes: true. doc_save writes atomically, incrementally in place, and in full for a new path. Atomic output writes call sync_all on the staging file before replacing the destination. A write or sync error leaves the destination intact, removes staging and leaves the document dirty for retry. A filesystem that does not support syncing returns an error; there is no unsynced fallback. This flushes file contents, but does not guarantee persistence of the parent-directory rename across power loss.
  • With a root set, every read and write path must resolve inside it (symlinks and .. included). Relative paths resolve inside the root, and .. is resolved by name before the check. Every path outside the root gets the same refusal (<path> is outside the allowed directory <root>), whether or not it exists, so a confined agent can't probe the rest of the disk; on Windows another network share or device path (\\host\share, \\?\UNC\…, \\.\…) is refused without being contacted. "Not found" and other filesystem errors are reported only for paths inside the root. Tools that write several files into a folder name them after the document or input file, with separators, colons and control characters replaced by _, so a name can't lead them out of the folder. The root itself must be a folder.
  • Automation::with_automation_roots holds a read folder and a write folder (pdfcraft-cli mcp --automation-read-root DIR --automation-write-root DIR, see docs/mcp.md). Reads must lie inside the read root and writes inside the write root, links followed. A root left out grants none of its access. Refusals read automation path rejected: outside the read root <root>: <path>. As with a root set, on Windows a path on another network share or device path is refused with that refusal without being contacted (#4003). It applies on top of with_root.

Text search and cache limits

text_word_count counts the current snapshot without filling the text cache. It returns totals and per-page Unicode word/character counts, with optional tagged-table, tagged-code and image/OCR exclusions. See word count for counting rules and limits.

Extracted page text is reused in a session-wide LRU cache: at most 64 MiB of estimated owned text storage and 4,096 pages, shared by all open documents. Accounting includes glyph-vector capacity, each glyph string's capacity, line indexes and word-break flags. Cache hits share the renderer result instead of copying glyphs. Oversized pages remain usable by the current call but are not cached; evicted pages can be extracted again. A changed document version invalidates its cached text on the next text request, and closing a document removes its entries. Cache entries do not keep an old PDF byte buffer alive.

This bounds retained text-cache data, not total process memory: active extraction batches, renderers, document buffers and the requested output have separate lifetimes. Search still reads growing batches (8 to 128 pages), with one lookahead match to determine continuation.

text_find keeps matches from readable pages when another reached page fails extraction. It returns warnings with 1-based page, error and error_truncated, plus warning_count and warnings_truncated. At most 100 warnings and 1,024 UTF-8 bytes per error are returned. Failures are retried on later calls; they are not cached as empty pages. Warnings describe pages visited in search order, up to the continuation point, not failures in unvisited later pages.

complete: true means the requested search was exhausted with no page failures and no further matches. next: {start_page, skip} exists only when another match would exceed limit. A search that reaches the end with warnings therefore has complete: false without next. Callers should follow next when present and separately inspect warnings. A capped search can return both. The existing query, count, matches and rectangle semantics are unchanged.

text_extract, comment placement and redaction keep strict all-requested-pages-must-succeed semantics; they never silently act on partial text.

Shared field properties

For an individual push button, form_set_props also edits its visible normal label:

{"doc": 1, "field": "clear_button", "caption": "Clear Form", "widget": 1}

widget is a 1-based index (default 1), used only with caption; an empty caption clears the label. Neither renames the field. form_fields returns the first widget's caption and all captions as [{"widget": 1, "caption": "Clear Form"}]. Other widgets and icon-only layouts keep their settings. CLI and MCP use the same edit, including undo/redo and save/reopen. The desktop exposes it as Button Properties → Options → Label. Rollover/down labels and icon layout are not edited here; the existing caption font and unsupported-character warning policy apply.

form_set_props accepts either field (one name) or fields (1–1000 unique names):

{"doc": 1, "fields": ["first_name", "last_name"], "required": true,
 "appearance": {"width": 3, "border": "#1473E6"}}

The batch is atomic and creates one undo step. A missing or locked field, invalid option, unknown argument or malformed appearance refuses the whole edit. Set locked: false to unlock and change fields together. Only supplied properties change: each field/widget keeps its other colours, fonts, values and unknown PDF dictionary keys. "none" removes a border or fill colour. Names, rectangles, rotations and captions require the single-field form. Results keep field for single edits and return fields for batches. CLI and MCP use the same tool.

MCP server

Opt-in only. Nothing starts it automatically, and it opens no port. It runs while pdfcraft-cli mcp [--root DIR] runs, normally launched by an agent from its MCP configuration. It stops when stdin closes. The CLI's mcp Cargo feature (on by default) compiles it out entirely when disabled.

pdfcraft-cli mcp --compact (or McpServer::with_compact(true)) keeps tools/list short for agents with small context budgets. It lists only the core tools (mcp::COMPACT_CORE_TOOLS: open, info, save, close, render, text extract and find, combine, split, undo) plus the common command/inspection/preview tools and two meta tools: tool_search (optional query and category, the name prefix; or name for one tool's full input_schema) and tool_call (name and arguments, run through the same Automation::call). tools/call by name keeps working for every tool, and the server instructions mention the meta tools. Without the flag nothing changes.

Implemented: initialize (protocol 2025-06-18, 2025-03-26, 2024-11-05), ping, tools/list (with readOnlyHint/destructiveHint annotations), tools/call (JSON results also returned as structuredContent; images as image/png), and resources/list, resources/templates/list and resources/read. The resources expose the open documents read-only: pdfcraft://doc/{doc}/info (JSON), …/text, …/page/{page}/text and …/page/{page}/image{?dpi} (PNG, 1–600 dpi). Tool failures come back as isError: true results, so the agent can read and recover from them.

From an installed release

The release packages ship pdfcraft-cli alongside the desktop app, so no build is needed:

Install CLI
Windows (MSI) %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\ArtCraft\PdfCraft\pdfcraft-cli.exe by default (C:\Program Files\ArtCraft\PdfCraft\pdfcraft-cli.exe for an all-users install, under Program Files (x86) instead for the 32-bit build, or wherever you installed it otherwise), not on PATH
Linux (deb, rpm) /usr/bin/pdfcraft-cli
macOS the separate pdfcraft-cli-<version>-macos-<arch>.zip release asset (the .app holds only the desktop app)
# Windows (PowerShell), default install folder
claude mcp add pdfcraft -- "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\ArtCraft\PdfCraft\pdfcraft-cli.exe" mcp --root <dir>
# Linux, or macOS with the CLI unzipped onto PATH
claude mcp add pdfcraft -- pdfcraft-cli mcp --root <dir>

Adding a tool

  1. Add the engine capability first, with its tests (the tool is a thin adapter).
  2. Add a ToolDef in src/tools.rs: a precise description, the schema, ro()/destructive(), and cmd() if a registry command exists.
  3. Handle it in Automation::call, validating pages and positions with the existing helpers.
  4. Add an end-to-end test in tests/it/automation.rs. tool_table_is_well_formed checks names, schemas and command links.

Moving several page objects

object_list {doc, page} inventories recognised paragraphs, Image/Form artwork and added items with generation-scoped kind/index references. object_move {doc, page, objects, offset, generation?} moves 1–1000 references atomically in displayed points (right/down), preserving source glyph bytes and fonts. A refusal changes nothing; success is one undo step. See the selection and movement guide for limits and examples.

Accessibility review record

Open the original and edited PDFs as separate documents, then call accessibility_review_record {before, after, path}. The tool writes a JSON record atomically within --root: SHA-256 hashes of both working PDFs, rule statuses and finding counts before and after, changed rules, and rules still failed or requiring manual review. all: true also includes the colour-contrast rule. It does not change either PDF or certify accessibility. Keep the original open while making edits to the second document so the comparison has a stable baseline.

Common command tools

Following FilmCraft's MCP conventions, command_list {doc?, filter?, enabled_only?} keeps its {commands: [...]} result and adds each mapped tool's parameter schema. command_run {id, params?} runs that command through its existing headless tool: include doc and other tool arguments in params. Commands without a headless mapping return a tool error. Unknown parameter keys are ignored with a warnings array; required values and paths still go through the original validation.

command_batch {steps: [{id, params?}], stop_on_error?} returns completed, failed, and per-step {ok, result?, error?} entries. The default is to stop at the first error; earlier edits remain. MCP marks a batch with any failed steps as isError, including through compact tool_call. doc_inspect {doc?} returns one document's info, or {documents: [...]} for all open documents. render_preview {doc?, page?, max_side?} returns a PNG (page defaults to 1, maximum side defaults to 1024, allowed 1–4096). Omit doc only when exactly one document is open.

All task tools remain available; compact mode includes the five common tools. Every MCP tool has all four annotation hints. Unknown top-level argument keys return JSON-RPC -32602 with the accepted keys; failures in the invoked tool remain isError results. An escaped tool panic is reported as an internal tool error, and the server continues serving.

Exports complete synchronously. progressToken and cancellation notifications are harmlessly ignored; no background-job or cancellation behavior is added.

Session resources pdfcraft://document and pdfcraft://commands, and the refusal of unknown argument keys, are described in docs/mcp.md.

For inline editor previews, page_render accepts hide_text_block (a 1-based index from text_paragraphs). It renders the page without that paragraph’s source glyphs and leaves the working document unchanged.

page_render.hide_added_text does the same for an added text item's 1-based index from content_list or object_list. It removes only that item in a read-only preview and is mutually exclusive with hide_text_block.

When the renderer reports a warning for the page, page_render and render_preview return a JSON part after the PNG, { "page": 1, "warnings": [...] }, with the sentences pdfcraft-cli render prints: "content past the page's safety budget was skipped" and "a colour that could not be computed was painted in a fallback colour". A page without warnings returns the PNG alone.

Existing text and document fonts

text_font_files discovers eligible installed files on request (or specified confined folders), text_font_import registers a full document face, and text_fonts lists source/full resources. Use text_edit.font_resource to choose a resource, or keep source faces and let matching full faces complete absent subset glyphs. text_edit.ranges accepts disjoint UTF-8 byte ranges; text_edit_layout measures the same resource/range draft without committing. All changes are undoable and survive saving/reopening. image_hit shares the UI's curve and hole hit testing. The bounds, limits and font requirements are in existing-text editing and image editing.

Superscript and subscript normalization

text_script changes characters to their Unicode superscript or subscript forms; it does not change the font size or baseline. For characters that have such forms, uniformly plain text toggles to the requested script, and uniformly scripted text toggles back to plain text. Characters without a matching form stay unchanged and do not determine the selection's state.

A selection mixing plain and target-script characters normalizes to the requested script. For example, subscript changes H₂2 to H₂₂, then to H22 on the next call; superscript changes Q²2 to Q²², then to Q22. A second toggle does not reconstruct the original mixture. Each call is one undoable text edit: edit_undo restores the exact prior text, including its original mixture. Save/reopen preserves the resulting normalized characters.

link_open {doc, page, index, password?} follows a local PDF link using link_list numbering. Relative file specifications open normally. An absolute file specification requires allow_absolute: true, after reviewing the target reported by link_list. Omitting the argument or passing false refuses the request before checking or reading the target file. This is an intentional compatibility change for callers that previously opened absolute GoToR targets without explicit consent. Opting in does not bypass --root, symlink confinement, regular-file, PDF-extension, size, or password validation. Consent applies only to that call, including each password retry; it is never remembered for other links.

The desktop UI asks Allow/Cancel before following absolute GoToR targets and displays the complete path. Relative links retain their existing behavior. Named destinations remain unapplied with a warning.

Folder batches

doc_batch runs conversion, OCR and compression over files and optionally recursive folders. The CLI also exposes it as pdfcraft-cli batch. See the batch guide for examples, output protection, errors and limits.

Editing button export values

Use form_set_props with field, export_value and optional widget (1-based, default 1) to change a checkbox or radio button export value. form_fields returns export_values in widget order. The selected/default appearance states are preserved; the operation is undoable and survives saving. Widgets sharing an appearance state keep one export value. Bulk edits are not supported for this widget-specific property. Empty values, Off, conflicting choices and values over 4096 UTF-8 bytes return an error.

Example: form_set_props doc=1 field=agree export_value=Accepted widget=1.

Rendering a 3D model

model_render draws a page's 3D model (a 3D annotation's PRC stream, directly or through a 3D reference) to a PNG, without the viewer. model picks the page's Nth 3D model (default 1); width and height are 1 to 4096 (default 512); direction is the view direction from the eye (default [-1, 1, -1], with Z up unless the view looks along Z); perspective defaults to true. The model is framed to fill the image and shaded by a headlight on white. U3D models are refused with an error, and the annotation's own views, lighting and render modes are not applied yet.

Viewer navigation history

A running PdfCraft instance launched with --control FILE exposes its per-tab history through pdfcraft-cli ui --control FILE command id=view.previous_view and pdfcraft-cli ui --control FILE command id=view.next_view. commands reports whether each action is enabled for the active document. These are the same actions as the rail buttons, View → Page navigation, and Ctrl+[ / Ctrl+] (⌘[ / ⌘] on macOS).

Explicit page jumps, including search-result selection and Next/Previous match, enter history when the page changes. Automatic search refresh, continuous scrolling, and within-page scroll movement do not. Existing page-step commands and single-page wheel turns retain their history behavior. Back/Forward returns to page tops, does not restore zoom, does not switch documents, and is not saved across restarts. Standalone engine/MCP sessions have no viewport, so they do not have a separate navigation-history tool; use the opt-in UI control channel to navigate the displayed document.

Fill & Sign text appearance

fill_sign_add accepts font_size (4–300 pt, default 10) and color (#RRGGBB, default black) for text and date. The colour is saved in the FreeText appearance and survives reopening. Other mark/signature types reject color; their appearance controls are separate.

Reviewing OCR headlessly

ocr_words {doc, retain_review: true} reads words without editing the document and returns review, plus pages and word boxes/confidences. Page and word positions are 1-based. region can restrict recognition to one named page, using displayed-page points. Without retain_review, word inspection remains stateless.

Apply reviewed text with ocr_review_apply {doc, review, corrections: [{page: 1, word: 1, text: "Corrected"}]}. Omitted words keep their text; empty text removes a word. Geometry comes from the retained recognition, never caller input. The captured document guard rejects stale/foreign results. Successful application consumes the handle and is one undoable step. Use output_mode: "editable", out: "reviewed.pdf" to write a separate editable document, or discard: true to release the result without applying it. Failed validation preserves the review for correction or discard. A new retained recognition replaces that document's prior handle; closing the document releases it. At most eight documents may retain reviews, with 65,536-word/4-MiB input bounds and a 65,536-page cap.

ocr_dictionary {path: "ocr-dictionary-en.txt", add: ["Quartz"], remove: ["old"]} atomically updates the same one-word-per-UTF-8-line format OCR Verify uses. Omit add/remove to read it. The explicit path honors --root, including symlink confinement; choose the appropriate per-language file used by the UI. Entries are case-insensitive and duplicate-free. Invalid or oversized inputs fail before writing (65,536 words, 4 MiB, at most 1,024 bytes per word).