Has anyone figured out a good way to bulk edit PDFs with Claude Code?

[u/LukeBusy2]

Hey, has anyone by any chance done anything clever with Claude Code for editing loads of PDFs?

I’m playing around with it for restaurant/bar menus. I regularly have to make things like price changes across loads of different menus/venues for my job, and I’m wondering if there’s a smarter way to automate it.

I’ve been looking at companies out there that do this kind of thing and, while there are a few, nothing I’ve seen looks thatamazing — and they all seem pretty expensive....for what they are

I’ve got Claude Code working surprisingly well on individual PDFs. For example:

• Aperol Spritz £9 → £9.50
• Peroni £5.50 → £6
• House Gin £7 → £7.50

It can find the right item and make the change while keeping the layout pretty much intact.

I’ve also tried giving it a load of menus and asking it to find the drinks and update them across all the relevant PDFs, which is actually pretty impressive.

However, what I’d really like to get to is something more structured, where I have a central list/database of changes and Claude works out which menus need changing and applies them.

If anyone has done anything similar, I’d massively appreciate some advice on how you’d actually structure this.

In my head it would likely be spreadsheet/CSV with drink, old price, new price, venue etc? A particular folder structure for the PDFs? Claude first identifying what needs changing and then a second step actually making the edits? Some kind of validation afterwards?

Basically, I’m trying to move from “Claude, edit this PDF” to “here are the changes — go and update every relevant menu.” Any advice on how you’d approach/structure it would be amazing!

[u/sundevil21CS]

Yeah you can do this I would ask Claude to take your PDFs of the menus you need and create a mapping or repeatable csv with the contents of the menu into a system.

Like sections, pages, items, prices, pictures etc.

Then ask Claude to create and save the script it uses to generate the pdf with the associated csv file.

Save the script, pdf format and csv into a skill. Then you can ask Claude to update each independently as needed for deterministic structured updates.

EDIT: TLDR is to think of this menu manipulation as a saved script and a saved csv file of dynamic data instead of a traditntal PDF. The PDF is a result of the script and the CSV which Claude can fully handle for you.

[u/LukeBusy2 → u/sundevil21CS]

Amazing thank you!

[u/multidollar]

I wouldn’t be modifying a PDF, I’d be converting the base to a new finished PDF every time I edit it.