PDF Text Replace

Documents

pdf-text-replace

PDF Text Replace is an Agent Skill for documents published in the instavm/coderunner repository on GitHub: a SKILL.md instruction file an AI agent can load to do this task.

Replace text in fillable PDF forms by updating form field values. This skill should be used when users need to update names, addresses, dates, or other text in PDF form fields.

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How to use this skill

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Prompt to paste

Inspect the Agent Skill at https://github.com/instavm/coderunner/blob/HEAD/skills/public/pdf-text-replace/SKILL.md and all supporting files. Report provenance, permissions, scripts, dependencies, and security risks. Propose an exact installation into .agents/skills/pdf-text-replace, but wait for my approval before writing files or running scripts.

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PDF Text Replace Skill

Replace text in fillable PDF forms by updating form field values.

Description

This skill allows you to search and replace text in PDF files that have fillable form fields. It scans all form fields in the PDF, finds fields containing the search text, and replaces it with the replacement text.

Use Cases

Update names in filled tax forms
Replace addresses in PDF documents
Update dates or reference numbers
Batch update form field values

Requirements

PDF must have fillable form fields (not flattened)
Python 3.7+
pypdf library

Usage

Basic Usage

python /app/uploads/skills/public/pdf-text-replace/scripts/replace_text_in_pdf.py \
    /app/uploads/input.pdf \
    "OLD TEXT" \
    "NEW TEXT" \
    /app/uploads/output.pdf

Example: Replace Name in Tax Form

python /app/uploads/skills/public/pdf-text-replace/scripts/replace_text_in_pdf.py \
    /app/uploads/f5472.pdf \
    "MANISH KUMAR" \
    "MANNU KUMAR" \
    /app/uploads/f5472_updated.pdf

Script Details

Script: scripts/replace_text_in_pdf.py

Arguments:

input_pdf - Path to input PDF file
search_text - Text to search for in form fields
replace_text - Text to replace with
output_pdf - Path to save the updated PDF

Output:

Creates a new PDF with updated field values
Preserves all form fields (not flattened)
Reports number of fields modified

Limitations

Only works with fillable PDF forms (not scanned/image PDFs)
Replaces text in form field values, not static text
Case-sensitive search by default
Cannot modify flattened PDFs

Dependencies

The script requires the pypdf library, which is included in the container requirements.

Error Handling

The script will report errors if:

Input PDF doesn't exist
PDF doesn't have fillable form fields
Search text is not found
Output path is not writable