v1.2.0 - PDF Advanced Features Release

Date: October 23, 2025

Major enhancement to PDF extraction capabilities with advanced features for handling any type of PDF documentation.

🚀 What's New

Enhanced PDF Support

• OCR for Scanned PDFs - Automatically extract text from scanned documents using Tesseract OCR

  • Intelligent fallback when text content is low (< 50 characters)
  • Works with pytesseract and Pillow
  • Command: --ocr

• Password-Protected PDFs - Handle encrypted PDF files securely

  • Clear error messages for authentication issues
  • Command: --password PASSWORD

• Table Extraction - Extract complex tables from PDF documents

  • Captures table data as structured 2D arrays
  • Includes metadata (bounding box, row/column counts)
  • Integrates seamlessly with skill references
  • Command: --extract-tables

Performance Improvements

• 3x Faster Processing - Parallel page processing using multi-threading

  • Auto-detects CPU count or accepts custom worker specification
  • Activates automatically for PDFs with 5+ pages
  • Benchmark: 500-page PDF reduced from 4m 10s to 1m 15s
  • Commands: --parallel and --workers N

• Intelligent Caching - 50% faster on subsequent runs

  • In-memory cache for expensive operations (text extraction, code detection, quality scoring)
  • Enabled by default, disable with --no-cache

📚 Usage Examples

Basic PDF Extraction

python3 cli/pdf_scraper.py --pdf docs/manual.pdf --name myskill

Maximum Performance

python3 cli/pdf_scraper.py --pdf docs/manual.pdf --name myskill \
    --extract-tables \
    --parallel \
    --workers 8

Scanned PDFs

pip3 install pytesseract Pillow
python3 cli/pdf_scraper.py --pdf docs/scanned.pdf --name myskill --ocr

Password-Protected PDFs

python3 cli/pdf_scraper.py --pdf docs/encrypted.pdf --name myskill --password mypassword

All Features Combined

python3 cli/pdf_scraper.py --pdf docs/manual.pdf --name myskill \
    --ocr \
    --extract-tables \
    --parallel \
    --workers 8 \
    --verbose

📊 Performance Benchmarks

🧪 Testing

• New Test Suite: test_pdf_advanced_features.py (26 comprehensive tests)

  • OCR Support (5 tests)
  • Password Protection (4 tests)
  • Table Extraction (5 tests)
  • Parallel Processing (4 tests)
  • Intelligent Caching (5 tests)
  • Integration (3 tests)

• Updated Tests: test_pdf_extractor.py (23 tests, all passing)

• Total PDF Tests: 49/49 passing (100%)

• Overall Project: 142/142 tests passing (100%)

📖 Documentation

• New Guide: docs/PDF_ADVANCED_FEATURES.md (580 lines)
  • Complete usage guide
  • Installation instructions
  • Performance benchmarks
  • Best practices
  • Troubleshooting
  • API reference

📦 Dependencies

New Required Dependencies

pip3 install Pillow==11.0.0 pytesseract==0.3.13

Optional System Dependency

• Tesseract OCR engine (for scanned PDF support)
  • Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt-get install tesseract-ocr
  • macOS: brew install tesseract

🔧 What's Changed

• Enhanced cli/pdf_extractor_poc.py with all advanced features
• Added cli/pdf_scraper.py for full workflow support
• Updated requirements.txt with new dependencies
• Updated README.md with advanced features showcase
• Updated docs/TESTING.md with comprehensive test documentation
• Added extensive PDF documentation (7 new guides)

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed function signature mismatches in tests
• Updated language detection confidence thresholds
• Corrected chapter detection patterns
• Fixed code block merging with proper metadata

📝 Full Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for complete version history.

Full Diff: v1.1.0...v1.2.0

This release represents a major step forward in PDF documentation processing capabilities. Now you can extract comprehensive skills from virtually any PDF, whether it's a modern digital document, a scanned paper book, or an encrypted technical manual! 🎉