# pdf-table-pull-lite

> Free, MIT-licensed tool that pulls tables out of local text PDFs and returns them as CSV. Runs offline. Has a CLI, a Python API and a stdio MCP server.

- Install: `pip install pdf-table-pull-lite` (or from GitHub: `pip install git+https://github.com/tidybytetools/pdf-table-pull-lite`)
- CLI: `pdf-table-pull-lite file.pdf -o out/ -p 1-3 -s auto` writes one CSV per table (page<N>_table<K>.csv). Exit 0 ok, 1 error.
- Python: `from pdf_table_pull_lite import extract; tables, scanned_pages = extract("file.pdf")` where each table is {"page", "index", "rows"}.
- MCP: `uvx --from pdf-table-pull-lite pdf-table-pull-lite-mcp` exposes `extract_pdf_tables(path, pages="", strategy="auto", output_dir="") -> list[str]` (CSV text, or file paths if output_dir is set).

## Use when
- The PDF has a text layer and you need its tables as rows.

## Don't use when
- The PDF is scanned or image-only (pages are skipped), password-protected, or you need Excel/JSON or tables joined across pages. The paid version does those: https://tidybyte.gumroad.com/l/hkxqxh

## Links
- [README](https://github.com/tidybytetools/pdf-table-pull-lite/blob/main/README.md)
- [Paid version](https://tidybyte.gumroad.com/l/hkxqxh)
