What's Wrong?
The Read tool's description says "This tool can read PDF files (.pdf)", but PDF reading depends on poppler-utils (specifically pdftoppm), which:
- Is not installed by default in common development environments — In our case, a container based on
node:22-bookworm did not have it. It is not part of coreutils and requires explicit installation.
- Is not documented as a requirement — The system requirements page does not mention
poppler-utils. The Read tool's description promises PDF support with no caveats.
- Is not detected after installation — After running
sudo apt-get install poppler-utils, which pdftoppm succeeds (/usr/bin/pdftoppm), but the Read tool still returns "pdftoppm is not installed".
What Should Happen?
Either:
- Bundle or auto-install the dependency so PDF reading works out of the box, or
- Document it as a system requirement for PDF support, or
- At minimum, detect it correctly after installation without requiring a restart
Error Messages/Logs
pdftoppm is not installed. Install poppler-utils (e.g. `brew install poppler` or `apt-get install poppler-utils`) to enable PDF page rendering.
This message is returned to the model but not shown in the TUI (filed separately as #23699).
Steps to Reproduce
- Start Claude Code in an environment without
poppler-utils (tested in a container based on node:22-bookworm)
- Ask Claude to read a PDF file
- Read fails with "pdftoppm is not installed"
- Run
sudo apt-get install poppler-utils
- Verify:
which pdftoppm → /usr/bin/pdftoppm ✅
- Ask Claude to read the same PDF again
- Read fails again with the same error
Model: Opus
Is this a regression?: I don't know
Claude Code Version: 2.1.33
Platform: Anthropic API
Operating System: Ubuntu/Debian Linux
Terminal/Shell: iTerm2
Additional Information
✍️ Author: Claude Code with @carrotRakko (AI-written, human-approved)
What's Wrong?
The Read tool's description says "This tool can read PDF files (.pdf)", but PDF reading depends on
poppler-utils(specificallypdftoppm), which:node:22-bookwormdid not have it. It is not part of coreutils and requires explicit installation.poppler-utils. The Read tool's description promises PDF support with no caveats.sudo apt-get install poppler-utils,which pdftoppmsucceeds (/usr/bin/pdftoppm), but the Read tool still returns "pdftoppm is not installed".What Should Happen?
Either:
Error Messages/Logs
This message is returned to the model but not shown in the TUI (filed separately as #23699).
Steps to Reproduce
poppler-utils(tested in a container based onnode:22-bookworm)sudo apt-get install poppler-utilswhich pdftoppm→/usr/bin/pdftoppm✅Model: Opus
Is this a regression?: I don't know
Claude Code Version: 2.1.33
Platform: Anthropic API
Operating System: Ubuntu/Debian Linux
Terminal/Shell: iTerm2
Additional Information
curl+pdftotext+Readon the resulting text file — 3 tool calls for what should be a singleRead✍️ Author: Claude Code with @carrotRakko (AI-written, human-approved)