Introduction and Usage Guide for PyMuPDF (Python Bindings for MuPDF)

PyMuPDF is the Python binding for the lightweight MuPDF library, which serves as a PDF, XPS, and e‑book viewer supporting formats like PDF, XPS, OpenXPS, CBZ, EPUB, and FB2.

Key features include decryption, metadata access, rendering pages as raster (PNG) or vector (SVG), text search, extraction of text and images, conversion to other formats, and extensive PDF manipulation such as creating, merging, splitting, inserting, deleting, and re‑ordering pages.

Installation can be done via source or pre‑built wheels from PyPI; the package works on Windows, Linux, and macOS for Python 3.6‑3.9 (64‑bit and 32‑bit where available). Optional dependencies like Pillow , fontTools , and pymupdf-fonts enable additional functionality.

Typical usage starts with importing the library using import fitz , then opening a document with doc = fitz.open(filename) . The Document object provides methods such as page_count , metadata , load_page() , get_toc() , and save() .

Page handling is central: load a page via page = doc.load_page(pno) or page = doc[pno] , then use methods like page.get_pixmap() for raster images, page.get_svg_image() for vector output, page.get_text(opt) for various text extraction formats, and page.search_for("text") to locate strings.

PDF‑specific operations include Document.insert_pdf() to merge documents, Document.delete_page() and Document.delete_pages() to remove pages, Document.insert_page() or Document.new_page() to add pages, and Document.save(incremental=True) for fast incremental updates.

Additional utilities cover extracting links ( page.get_links() ), annotations ( page.annots() ), and form fields ( page.widgets() ), as well as converting any supported document to PDF via Document.convert_to_pdf() .