PDF Operations

Performs structural operations on PDF files, including splitting, merging, reordering, rotating, deleting pages, extracting text, and checking OCR status.

Purpose

Use this task whenever a workflow needs to manipulate the structure or content of a PDF without leaving the automation engine. It covers the most common PDF processing scenarios: breaking a large document into individual pages for downstream processing, extracting a subset of pages, combining multiple PDFs into one, correcting page orientation, removing unwanted pages, resequencing pages, reading text content, and determining whether a scanned document requires OCR before text extraction is attempted.

Inputs

Field	Type	Required	Description
Operation Type	Dropdown	Yes	The PDF operation to perform. See the Operations section for details.
Input File Path	Text	Yes	Full path to the source PDF file. For the Merge PDFs operation, provide a JSON array of file paths or a comma-separated list of paths.
Output Folder Path	Text	No	Folder where split single-page PDFs will be written. If blank, a timestamped subfolder is created automatically beside the input file. Only shown for Split Into Single Pages.
Output File Path	Text	No	Full path for the resulting PDF file. Required for all operations that produce a single output file. Only shown for Split By Page Range, Extract Pages, Merge PDFs, Rotate Pages, Delete Pages, and Reorder Pages.
Page Range	Text	No	Page range in the format 1-5 or 3- (open-ended). Used to select which pages to include or rotate. Only shown for Split By Page Range and Rotate Pages.
Page Numbers	Text	No	Comma-separated list of 1-based page numbers (e.g., 1,3,5,7). Used to select individual pages to extract or delete. Only shown for Extract Pages and Delete Pages.
Rotation Degrees	Dropdown	No	Clockwise rotation to apply to the selected pages: 0, 90, 180, or 270. Only shown for Rotate Pages.
New Page Order	Text	No	Comma-separated list of 1-based page numbers defining the desired sequence (e.g., 3,1,4,2,5). Every page in the document must appear exactly once. Only shown for Reorder Pages.

Visibility Rules

Output Folder Path is only shown when Operation Type is set to Split Into Single Pages.

Output File Path is only shown when Operation Type is set to Split By Page Range, Extract Pages, Merge PDFs, Rotate Pages, Delete Pages, or Reorder Pages.

Page Range is only shown when Operation Type is set to Split By Page Range or Rotate Pages.

Page Numbers is only shown when Operation Type is set to Extract Pages or Delete Pages.

Rotation Degrees is only shown when Operation Type is set to Rotate Pages.

New Page Order is only shown when Operation Type is set to Reorder Pages.

Operations

Operation	Description
Split Into Single Pages	Creates one PDF per page from the input file and writes them to the output folder.
Split By Page Range	Extracts a contiguous range of pages into a new PDF.
Extract Pages	Extracts a specific set of individually named pages into a new PDF.
Merge PDFs	Combines multiple PDF files into a single output PDF, in the order provided.
Rotate Pages	Rotates a range of pages clockwise by the specified number of degrees.
Delete Pages	Removes specific pages and writes the remaining pages to a new PDF.
Reorder Pages	Rearranges all pages into the specified sequence and writes the result to a new PDF.
Get Page Count	Returns the total number of pages in the PDF without modifying it.
Read Text	Extracts all selectable text from the PDF and returns it as a string.
Check If Needs OCR	Determines whether the PDF contains selectable text or is a rasterized scan that requires OCR.

Outputs

The outputs produced depend on the operation selected.

Split Into Single Pages

Name	Description
OutputFolder	Path to the folder containing the generated single-page PDF files.
CreatedFiles	Array of file paths for each page PDF that was created.
FileCount	Number of single-page PDFs created.

Split By Page Range

Name	Description
OutputFile	Path to the output PDF containing the extracted page range.
PageRange	The page range string that was extracted.

Extract Pages

Name	Description
OutputFile	Path to the output PDF containing the extracted pages.
ExtractedPages	Array of page numbers that were extracted.

Merge PDFs

Name	Description
OutputFile	Path to the merged output PDF.
MergedCount	Number of PDF files that were combined.

Rotate Pages

Name	Description
OutputFile	Path to the output PDF with rotated pages.
RotationDegrees	The rotation value that was applied.

Delete Pages

Name	Description
OutputFile	Path to the output PDF with the specified pages removed.
DeletedPages	Array of page numbers that were removed.

Reorder Pages

Name	Description
OutputFile	Path to the output PDF with pages in the new order.
NewPageOrder	Array of page numbers in the order they were applied.

Get Page Count

Name	Description
PageCount	Total number of pages in the PDF.
InputFile	Path to the input PDF that was inspected.

Read Text

Name	Description
ExtractedText	All selectable text found in the PDF. Empty string if the document is rasterized.
CharacterCount	Number of characters extracted.
IsEmpty	Boolean indicating whether no text was found.
InputFile	Path to the input PDF that was read.

Check If Needs OCR

Name	Description
NeedsOCR	Boolean indicating whether the PDF is likely a rasterized scan requiring OCR.
PdfType	Descriptive label: Rasterized (Scanned) or Vectorized (Has Text).
PageCount	Total number of pages in the PDF.
TotalCharacters	Total number of characters found across all pages.
AvgCharactersPerPage	Average characters per page, used to determine OCR need.
InputFile	Path to the input PDF that was inspected.