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NanoPDF

Official registry Productivity

AI-powered PDF editing and generation MCP server using Gemini Pro.

Source code Documentation

What can you do with NanoPDF?

  • AI-Driven Editing: Modify PDF slides using natural language prompts.
  • Smart Generation: Create new, visually consistent slides after any page.
  • Visual Previews: View specific PDF pages as high-quality images.
  • Privacy First: All versioning and temporary files are stored locally on your machine.
  • State Preservation: Uses Tesseract OCR to maintain searchable text layers in AI-generated pages.
  • Version Control: Built-in undo functionality for safe experimentation.

Install

Add this to your client's MCP configuration (Claude Desktop: claude_desktop_config.json; Cursor: .cursor/mcp.json; VS Code and others use the same "mcpServers" shape).

OCI package docker.io/taibennett/nano-pdf-mcp:0.1.0
Claude Code 
claude mcp add nanopdf -e 'GEMINI_API_KEY=<your gemini_api_key>' -- docker run -i --rm docker.io/taibennett/nano-pdf-mcp:0.1.0
JSON configuration (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code) 
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "nanopdf": {
            "command": "docker",
            "args": [
                "run",
                "-i",
                "--rm",
                "docker.io/taibennett/nano-pdf-mcp:0.1.0"
            ],
            "env": {
                "GEMINI_API_KEY": "<your gemini_api_key>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Environment variables

  • GEMINI_API_KEY required secret Google AI Studio API key for Gemini Pro

Documentation

From the project's README on GitHub, refreshed weekly. Links open on GitHub.

Contents
  1. NanoPDF MCP Server
  2. 🚀 Key Features
  3. 📋 Prerequisites
  4. 🛠️ Installation & Setup
  5. 📖 Usage Guide
  6. 📂 Project Structure
  7. 🤝 Acknowledgements
  8. 📄 License

NanoPDF MCP Server

NanoPDF MCP Server is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) implementation that brings AI-powered PDF editing and generation capabilities directly to Claude Desktop. It enables users to modify existing PDF pages or generate new ones using Google's Gemini 3 Pro model, all within a privacy-focused local environment.

🚀 Key Features

  • AI-Driven Editing: Modify PDF slides using natural language prompts.
  • Smart Generation: Create new, visually consistent slides after any page.
  • Visual Previews: View specific PDF pages as high-quality images.
  • Privacy First: All versioning and temporary files are stored locally on your machine.
  • State Preservation: Uses Tesseract OCR to maintain searchable text layers in AI-generated pages.
  • Version Control: Built-in undo functionality for safe experimentation.

📋 Prerequisites

System Dependencies

The server requires poppler (for PDF rendering) and tesseract (for OCR) installed on your system.

  • macOS (Homebrew):
    brew install poppler tesseract
  • Ubuntu/Debian:
    sudo apt-get install poppler-utils tesseract-ocr
Environment Variables

A Google Gemini API key is required to power the AI features.

  • GEMINI_API_KEY: Your Google AI Studio API key.

🛠️ Installation & Setup

1. Development Environment

This project uses uv for lightning-fast Python package management.

# Navigate to the server directory
cd mcp-server

# Install dependencies
uv sync
2. Configure Claude Desktop

Add the NanoPDF server to your Claude Desktop configuration:

Path: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nanopdf": {
      "command": "/Users/username/.local/bin/uv", # replace with your uv path
      "args": [
        "run",
        "--directory",
        "/Users/username/nano-pdf-mcp/mcp-server", # replace with your mcp-server path
        "server.py"
      ]
    }
  }
}

[!IMPORTANT] Change username to your actual macOS username. Ensure the --directory path is the absolute path to your mcp-server folder.

📖 Usage Guide

For detailed tool descriptions and workflow examples, please refer to the Usage Guide.

Core Workflow
  1. Open PDF: open_pdf(pdf_path="/path/to/document.pdf")
  2. Edit/Add: edit_pdf_page(session_id="...", page_number=1, prompt="...")

📂 Project Structure

  • mcp-server/: Core MCP server implementation.
    • server.py: Main entry point and tool definitions.
    • mcp_pdf_utils.py: PDF processing, OCR, and rendering logic.
    • mcp_ai_utils.py: Gemini Pro Vision API integration.
    • history_manager.py: Local session and version history tracker.
    • output/: Local storage for sessions and previews.
  • LICENSE: Project license (MIT).
  • USAGE.md: Detailed usage instructions and examples.

🤝 Acknowledgements

Based on the original NanoPDF project. Adapted for the Model Context Protocol.

📄 License

MIT License

Frequently asked questions

What is NanoPDF?

AI-powered PDF editing and generation MCP server using Gemini Pro.

How do I install NanoPDF?

It runs on your machine. In Claude Code: claude mcp add nanopdf -e 'GEMINI_API_KEY=<your gemini_api_key>' -- docker run -i --rm docker.io/taibennett/nano-pdf-mcp:0.1.0. For other clients, paste the JSON configuration from this page into their MCP settings.

Does NanoPDF need an API key?

Yes. It expects GEMINI_API_KEY, which you set in its configuration.

Is NanoPDF open source?

Its code is public on GitHub, but the repository does not declare a standard license.

Who maintains NanoPDF?

It is published by R09722akaBennett. AI.tn lists it but does not maintain or endorse it.

From the official MCP Registry. Listing is not an endorsement: review a server's code and permissions before giving it access to your data.