crewAI/docs/en/tools/file-document/pdfsearchtool.mdx

---
title: PDF RAG Search
description: The `PDFSearchTool` is designed to search PDF files and return the most relevant results.
icon: file-pdf
mode: "wide"
---

# `PDFSearchTool`

<Note>
    We are still working on improving tools, so there might be unexpected behavior or changes in the future.
</Note>

## Description

The PDFSearchTool is a RAG tool designed for semantic searches within PDF content. It allows for inputting a search query and a PDF document, leveraging advanced search techniques to find relevant content efficiently. 
This capability makes it especially useful for extracting specific information from large PDF files quickly.

## Installation

To get started with the PDFSearchTool, first, ensure the crewai_tools package is installed with the following command:

```shell
pip install 'crewai[tools]'
```

## Example
Here's how to use the PDFSearchTool to search within a PDF document:

```python Code
from crewai_tools import PDFSearchTool

# Initialize the tool allowing for any PDF content search if the path is provided during execution
tool = PDFSearchTool()

# OR

# Initialize the tool with a specific PDF path for exclusive search within that document
tool = PDFSearchTool(pdf='path/to/your/document.pdf')
```

## Arguments

- `pdf`: **Optional** The PDF path for the search. Can be provided at initialization or within the `run` method's arguments. If provided at initialization, the tool confines its search to the specified document.

## Custom model and embeddings

By default, the tool uses OpenAI for both embeddings and summarization. To customize the model, you can use a config dictionary as follows. Note: a vector database is required because generated embeddings must be stored and queried from a vectordb.

```python Code
from crewai_tools import PDFSearchTool

# - embedding_model (required): choose provider + provider-specific config
# - vectordb (required): choose vector DB and pass its config

tool = PDFSearchTool(
    config={
        "embedding_model": {
            # Supported providers: "openai", "azure", "google-generativeai", "google-vertex",
            # "voyageai", "cohere", "huggingface", "jina", "sentence-transformer",
            # "text2vec", "ollama", "openclip", "instructor", "onnx", "roboflow", "watsonx", "custom"
            "provider": "openai",  # or: "google-generativeai", "cohere", "ollama", ...
            "config": {
                # Model identifier for the chosen provider. "model" will be auto-mapped to "model_name" internally.
                "model": "text-embedding-3-small",
                # Optional: API key. If omitted, the tool will use provider-specific env vars
                # (e.g., OPENAI_API_KEY or EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_API_KEY for OpenAI).
                # "api_key": "sk-...",

                # Provider-specific examples:
                # --- Google Generative AI ---
                # (Set provider="google-generativeai" above)
                # "model_name": "gemini-embedding-001",
                # "task_type": "RETRIEVAL_DOCUMENT",
                # "title": "Embeddings",

                # --- Cohere ---
                # (Set provider="cohere" above)
                # "model": "embed-english-v3.0",

                # --- Ollama (local) ---
                # (Set provider="ollama" above)
                # "model": "nomic-embed-text",
            },
        },
        "vectordb": {
                    "provider": "chromadb",  # or "qdrant"
                    "config": {
                        # For ChromaDB: pass "settings" (chromadb.config.Settings) or rely on defaults.
                        # Example (uncomment and import):
                        # from chromadb.config import Settings
                        # "settings": Settings(
                        #     persist_directory="/content/chroma",
                        #     allow_reset=True,
                        #     is_persistent=True,
                        # ),

                        # For Qdrant: pass "vectors_config" (qdrant_client.models.VectorParams).
                        # Example (uncomment and import):
                        # from qdrant_client.models import VectorParams, Distance
                        # "vectors_config": VectorParams(size=384, distance=Distance.COSINE),

                        # Note: collection name is controlled by the tool (default: "rag_tool_collection"), not set here.
                    }
        },
    }
)

## Security

### Path Validation

File paths provided to this tool are validated against the current working directory. Paths that resolve outside the working directory are rejected with a `ValueError`.

To allow paths outside the working directory (for example, in tests or trusted pipelines), set the environment variable:

```shell
CREWAI_TOOLS_ALLOW_UNSAFE_PATHS=true
```

### URL Validation

URL inputs are validated: `file://` URIs and requests targeting private or reserved IP ranges are blocked to prevent server-side request forgery (SSRF) attacks.
```