PDF Reader MCP

What PDF Reader MCP does

PDF Reader MCP gives MCP-compatible agents a document ingestion and evidence workflow centered on PDFs. search finds text across one file, multiple files, recursive directories, or URLs and returns the matching location with a highlighted snippet.

The server also exposes document structure and page-level inspection. outline builds a heading tree with stable node IDs, title paths, ranges, and Markdown byte positions. inspect can return PDF metadata and page facts, render pages to PNG, crop bounding-box regions, run OCR or region analysis, produce document structure JSON, and compare two PDF sources page by page.

How it works

The server runs locally over MCP stdio and can be launched with the @sylphx/anymd package. It accepts paths, directories, and URLs through its tools. Reading can be limited with a page selector such as 1-5,8, while large outputs stop at a token limit and return a cursor for continuation. Directory searches recurse while respecting .gitignore, and a glob such as *.pdf can narrow the files considered.

Search uses an automatic mode by default: it looks for the exact phrase and falls back to BM25-ranked passages when no exact match is found. Literal and ranked modes force one of those search strategies. For structured retrieval, an agent can first call outline, then pass a returned node ID to read to fetch a specific section.

Setup and configuration

Node.js 18 or newer is required. The standard setup command is:

npx -y @sylphx/anymd setup

A manual MCP configuration runs npx -y @sylphx/anymd as the command. The package provides setup examples for Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Cline, and Gemini CLI. The server can be restricted to a directory with --allow-dir=/path/to/docs.

The local mode does not require an API key. OCR uses explicitly enabled local document-vision models or Tesseract, and local audio transcription uses ffmpeg with the bundled Qwen3-ASR model; these model or transcription downloads require opt-in.

Tools and capabilities

• read: Convert PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX/XLS/ODS, CSV, EPUB, HTML, Markdown, text, images, audio, and video into readable output.
• search: Search files, directories, collections of files, or URLs with exact, literal, or BM25-ranked matching.
• outline: Return document headings, section ranges, stable IDs, and paths across supported document types.
• inspect: Examine PDF facts and metadata, render pages, crop regions, run OCR or analysis, return structure data, and compare PDF sources.
• render_page, extract_regions, ocr_pages, analyze_regions, and compare: Perform focused PDF evidence and layout operations.
• video_timeline, render_frame, and cite_check: Provide bounded media evidence or check whether a quote is supported at a cited location; these are part of anymd Pro.

Limitations and notes

Long reads are bounded by max_tokens, which defaults to 20,000, so agents must follow the returned cursor for additional content. OCR and audio transcription depend on explicitly installed or downloaded local components. cite_check verifies quote and location support rather than semantic truth. The package was formerly named pdf-reader-mcp, while the current executable and npm package use anymd.