translation-toolkit/skills/mpi-pdf-to-docx-conversion/SKILL.md

name, description, license, compatibility

name	description	license	compatibility
mpi-pdf-to-docx-conversion	Convert flowing text PDFs (Chinese or multi-language) to DOCX with proper fonts, styles, native bullets, lists, and embedded images. Use for text-based PDFs. Do not use for scanned/image PDFs, form-heavy PDFs, or documents where exact page layout must be preserved.	MIT	Requires Python 3.9+ and uv. Dependencies (pymupdf, python-docx) are declared in the script's /// script metadata.

PDF-to-DOCX Conversion

Convert text-based PDF documents (including CJK) into structured DOCX files that preserve fonts, sizes, colors, and layout intent.

Quick start

For most PDFs, run the bundled converter with uv:

uv run skills/mpi-pdf-to-docx-conversion/scripts/convert_pdf_to_docx.py input.pdf output.docx

uv reads the /// script metadata block in the script and installs pymupdf and python-docx automatically.

For documents with unusual fonts or structure, inspect first and pass a config dict. See references/config-patterns.md for the config schema and common patterns.

Workflow

1. Inspect the PDF. Dump fonts, sizes, bullets, and header hierarchy. See references/inspection-guide.md.
2. Configure. Build a config dict matching the PDF's patterns (fonts, bullet fonts, skip fonts, numbered patterns, header sizes). See references/config-patterns.md.
3. Convert. Run scripts/convert_pdf_to_docx.py or import PDFToDOCXConverter in Python.
4. Verify. Check paragraph count, styles, bullets, images, and page-number leakage. See the checklist below.

Features

• Style-aware extraction (font, size, bold, color)
• Native Word bullets and numbering
• Image extraction and embedding
• Verse/poetry line splitting
• Multi-language support (CJK, RTL, mixed scripts)
• Flowing text across pages (no forced page breaks)

Verification checklist

After conversion, inspect the DOCX:

python3 -c "
from docx import Document
doc = Document('output.docx')
print(f'Paragraphs: {len(doc.paragraphs)}')
for i, p in enumerate(doc.paragraphs):
    style = p.style.name if p.style else '-'
    print(f'[{i:2d}] [{style:15s}] {p.text[:80]}')
"

Check for:

1. All sections present (paragraph count matches expectations)
2. No merged verses or lists
3. Headers are bold and larger than body text
4. Bullets use the List Bullet style
5. Numbered items are separate paragraphs
6. Images are embedded in word/media/
7. Attribution lines are right-aligned or indented
8. Page numbers are not leaked into body text

Troubleshooting

If output is wrong, see references/troubleshooting.md for a full symptom/cause/fix table. Common first checks:

• Over-merged text → lower the Y-gap threshold.
• Over-split lines → raise the Y-gap threshold.
• Wingdings boxes → use native List Bullet style instead.
• Missing images → ensure images are extracted before DOCX construction.

References

• references/inspection-guide.md — dump PDF structure and interpret spans
• references/config-patterns.md — config dict, compact lists, verses, numbered steps
• references/docx-construction.md — East Asian fonts, bullets, image embedding
• references/troubleshooting.md — symptom/cause/fix table
• scripts/convert_pdf_to_docx.py — production-ready converter