RapidPdfTrans

Format-preserving PDF translation. The goal is to replace BabelDOC: keep the layout, and never silently drop text.

It opens a PDF, interprets content streams down to individual glyphs, and checks that every glyph is still accounted for. A pluggable translator marks those glyphs as translated. rpt translate without --output reports that translation and does not write a file. rpt translate --output rewrites the glyphs into a PDF and removes the original text-showing operators for the glyphs it rewrote.

The Chinese page is README.zh.md.

Usage

Install

Rust stable (1.88 or newer; the workspace pins stable):

cargo build -p rpt-cli --release
./target/release/rpt extract testdata/hello.pdf --compact

rpt extract prints JSON to stdout and does not write a PDF. On testdata/hello.pdf the plain text is Hello and the coverage object has "pending": 5.

Python (needs python3-dev). The module calls the Rust core directly:

cargo build -p rpt-python --release
cp target/release/librapidpdftrans.so rapidpdftrans.so
python3 -c 'import rapidpdftrans; print(rapidpdftrans.version()); print("Hello" in rapidpdftrans.extract("testdata/hello.pdf"))'

rapidpdftrans.translate(path) returns JSON and does not write a file. rapidpdftrans.save(path, output) writes a PDF.

C++ is a header-only wrapper over the C ABI:

cargo build -p rpt-ffi --release
g++ -std=c++17 -I include -I bindings/cpp bindings/cpp/smoke.cpp \
  target/release/librapidpdftrans.a -ldl -lm -lpthread -lgcc_s -o smoke
./smoke testdata/hello.pdf

rpt::Document::extract returns JSON. save writes a PDF and throws when RPT_LLM_API_KEY is unset.

Go, from bindings/go, after that static library exists:

go test ./...

text, err := rapidpdftrans.Extract("testdata/hello.pdf")

Translate returns JSON and does not write a PDF. The C function that writes a file is rpt_save.

Environment

Set the key in the environment. An api_key field in options JSON is ignored.

Variable	When	Default
RPT_LLM_API_KEY	required for a live translation	unset
RPT_LLM_BASE_URL	optional	https://hub.mypapers.top/api/llm/v1
RPT_LLM_MODEL	optional	auto
RPT_TRANSLATOR	optional	maclaw
RPT_GOOGLE_API_KEY	google and google-v2	unset
RPT_GOOGLE_CREDENTIALS	google-v3 service account	unset
RPT_GOOGLE_ACCESS_TOKEN	google-v3 bearer token	unset
RPT_CJK_FONT	optional Song/serif file	Noto Serif CJK, then the fallback list below
RPT_CJK_SANS	optional sans file	Noto Sans CJK
RPT_TRANSLATE_JOBS	optional	1
RPT_CJK_SIZE_SCALE	optional	0.90
RPT_CJK_LEADING	optional	1.60

RPT_TRANSLATOR is maclaw (default), openai, google, google-v2, google-v3, or google-unofficial. The unofficial client is opt-in only. It is never used as a silent fallback.

Fonts

--cjk-font and --cjk-sans take a TTF, TTC, or OTF. The same paths can be given as RPT_CJK_FONT and RPT_CJK_SANS. Bold text still uses /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Bold.ttc (collection face 2) when that file is installed.

When the serif path is unset, body text uses Noto Serif CJK SC Light if it is installed (~/.local/share/fonts/NotoSerifCJKsc-Light.otf, /usr/local/share/fonts/NotoSerifCJKsc-Light.otf, or /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSerifCJKsc-Light.otf), otherwise /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSerifCJK-Regular.ttc (face 2). Sans text uses /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc (face 2). If those faces cannot be subset, the fallback is RPT_CJK_FONT when it is set, then /usr/share/fonts/truetype/wqy/wqy-microhei.ttc, /usr/share/fonts/truetype/droid/DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf, and NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc under /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto or /usr/share/fonts/truetype/noto.

Translate

export RPT_LLM_API_KEY=...
./target/release/rpt translate paper.pdf --from en --to zh --output paper.zh.pdf

Flags that exist on rpt translate:

Flag	Meaning
--output	Write the translated PDF. Without it, no PDF is written.
--from, --to	Source and target language. Default en and zh.
--mode	replace (default), bilingual, side-by-side, alternating, or overlay.
--bilingual	Bilingual output. Layout is --layout.
--layout	side-by-side (default), alternating, or overlay. Used with --bilingual or --mode bilingual.
--bilingual-output	Also write a bilingual PDF from the same translation.
--max-pages N	Only the first N pages.
--model, --base-url	Override RPT_LLM_MODEL and RPT_LLM_BASE_URL for this run.
--glossary source=target	Repeat for more than one term. Applied locally before the call.
--translate-references	Translate the bibliography. Default is to keep it.
--translate-figures	Translate text inside figures. Default is the caption only.
--translate-tables	Translate cells and headers. Default is the caption only.
--cjk-font, --cjk-sans	TTF, TTC, or OTF.
--cjk-size-scale, --cjk-leading	Default 0.90 and 1.60.
--batch-size	Segments per model call. Default 8.
--jobs	Parallel model requests. Default 1, or RPT_TRANSLATE_JOBS. Layout stays single-threaded.
--replay file.json	Reuse a previous translation JSON. No model call.
--compact	One-line JSON on stdout.
--json	Accepted for compatibility. JSON is always written to stdout.

--json does not select a file. After --output succeeds, the process also prints the extraction JSON, including a translations array and a translator object (model, backend, base_url, calls, cache_hits).

Example output

testdata/hello.pdf extracts as plain text Hello. Coverage is not complete, because nothing has been translated:

{"complete": false, "pending": 5, "total": 5}

With no key, translate exits 1 and writes nothing:

rpt: translation failed: RPT_LLM_API_KEY is not set; the API key is accepted only from that environment variable

Troubleshooting

Missing key. Export RPT_LLM_API_KEY before rpt translate, Python save / translate, C++ save, or rpt_save. A key placed in options JSON is ignored. The message above is the whole failure.

Tofu (empty boxes). The chosen CJK face has no outline for that character. The glyph stays original with reason missing-glyph. Pass a face that contains it:

./target/release/rpt translate paper.pdf --from en --to zh \
  --cjk-font /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSerifCJK-Regular.ttc \
  --output paper.zh.pdf

RPT_CJK_FONT is the same path. A path that is not a file fails before any request: rpt: CJK font not found: ....

Layout

Path	Role
crates/rpt-core	Interpreter, font decoding, glyph coverage, translator
crates/rpt-ffi	C ABI (rpt_open, rpt_extract, rpt_translate, rpt_save, rpt_free)
crates/rpt-cli	rpt extract and rpt translate
crates/rpt-qa	Corpus fidelity report (rpt-qa)
crates/rpt-python	Native Python module via PyO3 (not the C ABI)
include/rapidpdftrans.h	C header generated by cbindgen
bindings/cpp	Header-only RAII wrapper
bindings/go	cgo wrapper over the static library
testdata/hello.pdf	One-page fixture for the binding smoke tests

Coordinates are PDF user space: origin at the bottom left, y increasing upward (pdf-user-space-origin-bottom-left-y-up). Page /Rotate is reported on each page and is not applied to glyph positions. q / Q save the graphics state and the text state (Tc Tw Tz TL Ts Tf Tr). They do not save the text matrix, matching the PDF specification.

Build

Rust stable (1.88 or newer; the workspace pins stable):

cargo test --workspace
cargo build -p rpt-cli --release
./target/release/rpt extract testdata/hello.pdf --json

rpt extract writes per-glyph JSON, a plain-text reconstruction, and a coverage report to stdout. rpt translate without --output translates that text and does not write a PDF. Pass --output to write the translated PDF.

Python (needs python3-dev):

cargo build -p rpt-python --release
cp target/release/librapidpdftrans.so rapidpdftrans.so
python3 -c 'import rapidpdftrans; print(rapidpdftrans.extract("testdata/hello.pdf")[:200])'

C ABI, used by Go and C++:

cargo build -p rpt-ffi --release
# header: include/rapidpdftrans.h
# static library: target/release/librapidpdftrans.a
g++ -std=c++17 -I include -I bindings/cpp bindings/cpp/smoke.cpp \
  target/release/librapidpdftrans.a -ldl -lm -lpthread -lgcc_s -o smoke

The C shared library is the same package, requested explicitly so a workspace build does not overwrite the Python module (both use the filename librapidpdftrans.so):

cargo rustc -p rpt-ffi --release -- --crate-type cdylib
# Linux: target/release/librapidpdftrans.so
# macOS: target/release/librapidpdftrans.dylib
# Windows: target/release/rapidpdftrans.dll

Go (from bindings/go, after the release static library exists):

go test ./...

rpt_save translates the open document and writes a PDF. It returns -1, and does not create the file, when RPT_LLM_API_KEY is unset.

Prebuilt packages

.github/workflows/sdk.yml archives the headers, the shared library, and the static library for each platform, with a CMake config and a Unix pkg-config file. .github/workflows/wheels.yml builds CPython 3.10+ abi3 wheels with cibuildwheel (one wheel per platform loads on CPython 3.10 and newer). Both workflows run on pull requests, workflow_dispatch, and tags v*. Pull requests upload build artifacts only. A tag whose name matches workspace.package.version in Cargo.toml (v0.1.0 for version 0.1.0) attaches the archives, wheels, and sdist to a GitHub Release and publishes the wheels and sdist to PyPI.

32-bit macOS is not built: there is no hosted runner for it, and current CPython does not ship a 32-bit macOS installer. musllinux wheels are built for x86_64 and aarch64. Rust does not publish a host compiler for i686-unknown-linux-musl or armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf, and cibuildwheel compiles inside that container. Intel macOS uses macos-15-intel; GitHub no longer provides macos-13. PyPI upload uses the PYPI_APIKEY repository secret (a PyPI API token) from the tag's wheel workflow, with skip-existing set. It does not use trusted publishing.

Translator

The default backend is an OpenAI-compatible chat endpoint:

• base URL https://hub.mypapers.top/api/llm/v1 (RPT_LLM_BASE_URL or the base_url option)
• model auto (RPT_LLM_MODEL or the model option)
• API key from RPT_LLM_API_KEY only

An api_key field in options JSON is ignored. Explicit options win over environment variables, which win over the built-in defaults. Tests talk to an in-process mock server. The live test runs only when RPT_LLM_API_KEY is set.

RPT_TRANSLATOR selects the backend: maclaw (default), openai, google / google-v2 (RPT_GOOGLE_API_KEY), google-v3 (a service account in RPT_GOOGLE_CREDENTIALS or a bearer token in RPT_GOOGLE_ACCESS_TOKEN), or google-unofficial. The unofficial client is opt-in only. It is never used as a silent fallback.

export RPT_LLM_API_KEY=...
./target/release/rpt translate paper.pdf --from en --to zh --output paper.zh.pdf

That command uses the defaults: it posts to the gateway at RPT_LLM_BASE_URL (https://hub.mypapers.top/api/llm/v1 when unset) with model RPT_LLM_MODEL (auto when unset). The key is only RPT_LLM_API_KEY. Nothing else has to be set. --glossary transformer=Transformer is optional and is applied locally before the call.

CJK glyphs are embedded from a face on the machine. RPT_CJK_FONT is the Song/serif file and RPT_CJK_SANS is the sans file. When those are unset, bold text uses /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Bold.ttc (collection face 2), serif text uses Noto Serif CJK SC Light when that file is installed and otherwise /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSerifCJK-Regular.ttc (face 2), and sans text uses /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc (face 2). When those faces cannot be subset, the fallback is RPT_CJK_FONT if it is set, then /usr/share/fonts/truetype/wqy/wqy-microhei.ttc, /usr/share/fonts/truetype/droid/DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf, and NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc under /usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto or /usr/share/fonts/truetype/noto. The embedded font is a glyf subset (Identity-H, ToUnicode). Horizontal advances come from hmtx; OpenType GSUB is not applied.

The default output is pure target-language text: the translation replaces the original in place. Bilingual output is opt-in. --mode side-by-side puts the original page on the left and the translation on the right. --mode alternating writes the original page, then the translated page. --mode overlay keeps the original operators and draws the translation on the same page. --bilingual selects side-by-side unless --layout alternating or --layout overlay is set. --layout alone does not change the default. The same choice is output_mode (default replace) and, only when bilingual is requested, bilingual_layout in options JSON for rpt_save, the C++ save, and Python save. A layout field by itself leaves the PDF as pure translation. --max-pages N limits extraction to the first N pages. A segment that does not fit, or that shares an operator with a formula or another kept glyph, stays original.

Before the call, URLs, email addresses, {brace} groups, numbers, in-text citations ([12], [1-3], (Smith et al., 2020), Smith (2019)), and glossary terms are replaced with ⟦N⟧ placeholders and restored afterwards. Glossary terms are substituted locally (longest match, ASCII word boundaries), so the model does not have to obey a glossary table. A dropped placeholder is retried once and then reported as an error.

The References / Bibliography section is not translated. Headings such as References, Bibliography, Works Cited, 参考文献, Literatur, and Références start the section; numbered and author-year entries do too. It continues across columns and pages and stops at the next section (Appendix, 附录, A. Proofs, …). Those glyphs are kept_original with reason references. skip_references defaults to true; set it to false in options JSON, or pass --translate-references on the CLI, to translate the section.

rpt translate --output then rewrites those glyphs. Without --output they stay translated_pending_rewrite.

Coverage

Every extracted glyph starts as pending. A document is complete only when each glyph has exactly one final disposition:

• rewritten — translated text has been written back into the PDF
• kept_original — the original drawing is kept, with a reason
• non_text — classified as non-text, with a reason

translated_pending_rewrite records a translation and stays unresolved until rewrite. Extraction alone therefore reports every glyph as unresolved. A test fails if an extraction path skips a glyph and shrinks that list.

Glyph records include the page, Unicode (which may be several characters, or empty when unmapped), character-code bytes, GID when known, font name and size, the text rendering matrix, an approximate bounding box, advance, colors, render mode, invisible and clip flags, and the source location (content stream, Form XObject, annotation appearance, or Type3 char proc, plus operator index and byte range). rpt translate --output uses that location to delete the original text-showing operator for each rewritten glyph.

What the interpreter covers

• Graphics state: q / Q, cm, text state, Tm / Td / TD / T* / ' / ", and TJ kerning
• Widths from simple /Widths and CID /W / /DW; vertical writing via /W2 / /DW2
• Form XObjects (matrix, resources, inheritance, cycles) and annotation /AP normal appearances
• Type3 char procs, including text drawn inside them
• Inline images, without aborting the page on a bad operator
• Invisible text (Tr 3 or 7) is recorded and flagged, not dropped
• Rectangular clips flag glyphs that fall outside; other clips set clip_uncertain
• Unicode fallback: ToUnicode CMap, then predefined CJK CMaps (decoded with encoding_rs, not Adobe's CID tables), then simple encodings and /Differences via the Adobe Glyph List, then glyph names from a Type 1 FontFile cleartext encoding (dup 65 /A put, including PFB), then the embedded font cmap. Unmapped glyphs are kept and flagged.

Fidelity corpus

corpus/manifest.json lists real papers and openly licensed books (direct URL, source, license, sha256, size, feature tags). python3 corpus/fetch.py downloads them into a gitignored cache. Those files are not committed. corpus/ci/ is the exception used by CI: nine CC BY 4.0 papers, each under 700 KB, with URLs and licenses in corpus/ci/manifest.json. testdata/hello.pdf is a one-page file generated by cargo run -p rpt-core --example hello_pdf, not a corpus document. rpt-qa extracts every cached file, checks glyph coverage, compares text with Poppler, and render-diffs an identity byte copy (SSIM on the page and on non-text blocks). A lopdf save is reported separately because it rewrites the file. CI runs the small ci: true subset. The full corpus is the nightly Corpus fidelity workflow. See corpus/README.md.

Translation benchmark

rpt-bench scores a translated PDF on dropped lines, placeholder and formula retention, overflow, style, non-text SSIM, and reference-operator byte identity. python3 corpus/bench/run.py records the identity ceiling (each CI PDF compared with itself) in corpus/benchmarks/. BabelDOC and PDFMathTranslate, when installed, should share corpus/bench/identity_server.py so the translator is the same. Metric definitions are in corpus/benchmarks/README.md.

Roadmap

1. M1. Content-stream interpreter, glyph coverage, pluggable translator, C / Python / Go / C++ skeletons, CLI.
2. M2. Layout analysis, placeholder protection beyond the current shield, translator caching and glossary integration in the layout model.
3. M3 (started). Re-layout with hmtx advances, CJK line breaking, font subsetting, deletion of the original text operators, bilingual mode, and a working rpt_save. GSUB shaping and full paragraph layout are still open.
4. M4. Richer layout, OCR for pages that are not real text, render-diff checks against PDFium.

Decisions worth weighing

• For a non-Identity CJK CMap, /W is looked up with the character code itself, not an Adobe-GB1 / Japan1 CID. /DW applies when that code is absent. Identity-H/V uses the numeric code as the CID.
• Standard 14 fonts without /Widths use MissingWidth (default 0). AFM metrics are not vendored, so those advances are wrong until the PDF embeds widths.
• Rectangle clips are exact enough to flag glyphs. Arbitrary paths only set clip_uncertain.
• A Type3 character records both the Type3 glyph and any text-showing operators inside its char proc.
• Glyph boxes are an em approximation (descent 0.2, ascent 0.8), not ink bounds.
• ZapfDingbats encoding is not included.
• PDFium is not a runtime dependency. A cross-check test was not added because libpdfium is not assumed to be installed.
• The in-memory translation cache is per call, keyed by the shielded source string.