---
name: PDF text extraction approach
description: AI agents cannot extract copyrighted book text — use pdftotext instead
type: feedback
---

AI extraction agents (Claude subagents) are blocked by content filtering when asked to reproduce copyrighted book text verbatim. This applies even for personal-use format-shifting.

**Why:** Content filtering policy blocks large-scale reproduction of copyrighted translations, regardless of fair-use context.

**How to apply:** For PDF-to-markdown extraction of copyrighted texts, use `pdftotext -layout` (from poppler, already installed via Homebrew) for mechanical extraction. The raw output is readable and citable, with minor OCR artifacts (spaced headings, split chapter numbers) that can be cleaned up with a script. AI agents can handle frontmatter, cataloguing, and cleanup — just not the verbatim text extraction itself.