Pull tables out of a PDF

CodexWithout deftPassed2026-11-07

Time

41s

New tokens

19.7k

Total input

136.6k

Output tokens

1.7k

Commands

5

Failed

0

Trace

1. I’ll locate the PDF, extract both tables, and write `table.xlsx` in the current directory with one table per sheet.

2. rg --files -g 'tables.pdf' -g '*.pdf' -g 'AGENTS.md' -g 'pyproject.toml' -g 'requirements.txt' -g 'package.json'
   output

   tables.pdf

3. python3 - <<'PY' import importlib.util for x in ('pdfplumber','camelot','tabula','openpyxl','pandas','fitz'): print(x, bool(importlib.util.find_spec(x))) PY which pdftotext || true which pdfinfo || true which tesseract || true
   output

   pdfplumber False
   camelot False
   tabula False
   openpyxl False
   pandas True
   fitz False
   pdftotext not found
   pdfinfo not found
   /opt/homebrew/bin/tesseract

4. file tables.pdf python3 - <<'PY' from pathlib import Path p=Path('tables.pdf').read_bytes() print(len(p), p[:100]) PY which swift || true which libreoffice || true which soffice || true which xlsx2csv || true
   output

   tables.pdf: PDF document, version 1.7
   1135 b'%PDF-1.7\n%\xbb\xad\xc0\xde\n3 0 obj\n<</Length 646>>stream\nBT /F1 12 Tf 60 760 Td (Quarterly report) Tj ET\nBT /F1 '
   /usr/bin/swift
   libreoffice not found
   soffice not found
   xlsx2csv not found

5. python3 - <<'PY' import re,zlib b=open('tables.pdf','rb').read() for m in re.finditer(rb'stream\\r?\\n(.*?)\\r?\\nendstream',b,re.S): d=m.group(1) try:d=zlib.decompress(d) except:pass print(d.decode('latin1','replace')) PY
   output

   BT /F1 12 Tf 60 760 Td (Quarterly report) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 60 720 Td (Region) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 220 720 Td (Sales) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 60 704 Td (North) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 220 704 Td (120) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 60 688 Td (South) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 220 688 Td (95) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 60 640 Td (Costs are listed below.) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 60 600 Td (Item) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 180 600 Td (Unit) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 300 600 Td (Price) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 60 584 Td (Pen) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 180 584 Td (Box) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 300 584 Td (4) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 60 568 Td (Ink) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 180 568 Td (Pack) Tj ET
   BT /F1 12 Tf 300 568 Td (9) Tj ET
   
   1 0 2 90 4 138 5 181 <</Type/Pages/Kids[4 0 R]/Count 1/MediaBox[0 0 595 842]/Resources<</Font<</F1 2 0 R>>>>>> <</Type/Font/Subtype/Type1/BaseFont/Helvetica>> <</Type/Page/Parent 1 0 R/Contents 3 0 R>> <</Type/Catalog/Pages 1 0 R>> 
   
   
   
   Æ
   Ê

6. I found two tables in the PDF text: a Region/Sales table and an Item/Unit/Price table. I’m placing them on separate worksheets and keeping the numeric values as numbers.

7. python3 - <<'PY' from zipfile import ZipFile, ZIP_DEFLATED from xml.sax.saxutils import escape from pathlib import Path sheets = [ ('Table 1', [['Region', 'Sales'], ['North', 120], ['South', 95]]), ('Table 2', [['Item', 'Unit', 'Price'], ['Pen', 'Box', 4], ['Ink', 'Pack', 9]]), ] def col(n): out = '' while n: n, r = divmod(n-1, 26) out = chr(65+r) + out return out def worksheet(rows): xml_rows=[] for ri,row in enumerate(rows,1): cells=[] for ci,value in enumerate(row,1): ref=f'{col(ci)}{ri}' if isinstance(value,(int,float)): cells.append(f'<c r=\"{ref}\"><v>{value}</v></c>') else: cells.append(f'<c r=\"{ref}\" t=\"inlineStr\"><is><t>{escape(str(value))}</t></is></c>') xml_rows.append(f'<row r=\"{ri}\">'+''.join(cells)+'</row>') return '<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"yes\"?><worksheet xmlns=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main\"><sheetData>'+''.join(xml_rows)+'</sheetData></worksheet>' out=Path('table.xlsx') with ZipFile(out,'w',ZIP_DEFLATED) as z: z.writestr('[Content_Types].xml','''<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"yes\"?><Types xmlns=\"http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/content-types\"><Default Extension=\"rels\" ContentType=\"application/vnd.openxmlformats-package.relationships+xml\"/><Default Extension=\"xml\" ContentType=\"application/xml\"/><Override PartName=\"/xl/workbook.xml\" ContentType=\"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet.main+xml\"/><Override PartName=\"/xl/worksheets/sheet1.xml\" ContentType=\"application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.worksheet+xml\"/><Override PartName=\"/xl/worksheets … 1560 more characters
   output

   Created table.xlsx (2008 bytes) with 2 worksheets.

8. Created [table.xlsx](table.xlsx) with one table per sheet.

Output

Claude Opus 5.5Without deftPassed2026-11-07

Time

17s

New tokens

11.5k

Total input

76.4k

Output tokens

1.0k

Commands

0

Failed

0

Trace

Output

---
name: deft
description: "Use deft first for any simple, direct operation on local files, whatever the type: convert, read, extract, edit, compress, merge, split, compare or inspect. Try it before writing a script or one-liner. If unsure, run deft find; if it says no command does this, use another tool. Not for programming work: to read, write or change source code, skip it."
---

# deft

One local command for file jobs. Prefer it over writing Python or shell scripts.

Syntax: `deft <group> <command> [inputs] [-o output] [--options]`

Groups:
- `pdf`: Merge, split, compress, encrypt, forms, OCR, compare, convert
- `image`: Resize, crop, convert, compress, adjust, montage, OCR
- `video`: Trim, merge, convert, compress, subtitles, GIF, frames (ffmpeg)
- `audio`: Convert, trim, normalize, denoise, cut silence (ffmpeg)
- `doc`: Word/ODT/RTF: to text, Markdown, HTML, PDF; find and replace
- `slides`: PowerPoint: extract text, Markdown outline
- `sheet`: Excel/CSV/ODS tables: SQL query, pivot, merge, split, convert
- `json`: JSON: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `toml`: TOML: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `xml`: XML: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `yaml`: YAML: convert, format, merge, diff, validate
- `md`: Markdown to PDF, HTML, Word, EPUB; table of contents
- `html`: HTML to Markdown, text, Word and PDF
- `epub`: E-books: info, to text, Markdown and PDF
- `gps`: GPX and KML tracks: convert, distance and time
- `qr`: Create QR codes and barcodes; read QR codes

How to use it:
1. Run `deft <group>` to list commands, or `deft find "<what you want>"` to search. If it says `no command does this`, use another tool.
2. Run `deft <group> <command> --help` for options and examples.
3. `deft convert <in> -o <out.ext>` converts between formats by extension.
4. Results are one line starting with `ok`, `partial` or `error`; add `--json` to parse them. Errors include a `hint:` with the fix.

Inputs are never overwritten; pass `--force` or `--in-place` to allow it. Globs and directories work as inputs; several inputs run in parallel.

If `deft` is not installed, ask the user, then follow https://github.com/firstprayer/deft/blob/main/docs/INSTALL.md