- name
- pdf-rename
- description
- Rename academic PDF papers to a standardized format "[Year] [Venue] Title.pdf" using a three-stage pipeline (Extract → Verify → Rename). Use when the user asks to organize, batch-rename, or metadata-enrich PDF files in a folder. Activates on keywords like "rename PDFs", "organize papers", "batch rename PDFs", "rename papers by metadata", "pdf重命名", "文献整理".
PDF Rename — Academic Paper Organizer
Rename academic PDFs to: [Year] [Venue] Title.pdf
Three-stage pipeline (strict order):
Extract → Verify → RenameAnti-error principle: Never re-parse PDF content during Rename stage. The Manifest is the single source of truth.
Quick Start
# Stage 1: Extract metadata → generate manifest
python scripts/extract.py "<folder_path>"
# Stage 2: Verify (manual or web search), then inject verified data
# → Edit scripts/VERIFIED_DATA dict with web-verified values
python scripts/apply_verified.py "<folder_path>"
# Stage 3: Preview rename plan
python scripts/execute.py "<folder_path>" --preview
# Execute rename (with backup)
python scripts/execute.py "<folder_path>" --executeWorkflow Details
Stage 1: Extract
scripts/extract.py reads every PDF in the folder and generates manifest.json.
For each PDF it extracts:
- Title: from PDF first-page text (heuristic: first non-metadata line)
- Year: from filename prefix (most reliable) or PDF text (conference-year pattern)
- Venue: inferred from PDF text (NeurIPS, ICML, arXiv, etc.)
- Status:
needs_verification(title/year from auto-extraction)
Manifest schema — see references/manifest_spec.md
⚠️ PDF text extraction is unreliable for titles. Expected quality: filename > PDF text for title. Always verify with web search before executing rename.
Stage 2: Verify
Before running rename, manually or via web search verify:
- Title is correct (filename is often sufficient, but multi-word titles may differ)
- Year is correct (arXiv submission year ≠ conference year)
- Venue is correct
Inject verified data via scripts/apply_verified.py:
- Key = original filename (exact match)
- Value =
{'title', 'year', 'venue', 'confirmed': True}
Set confirmed: False or omit entry for files to skip.
Stage 3: Rename
scripts/execute.py reads manifest and renames files:
- Status must be
readyto execute - Duplicate titles → append
(1),(2), etc. - Files with status
needs_verificationormanual_revieware skipped - Backup is created automatically at
<folder>/_backup_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS/
Key Design Decisions
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
| PDF title extraction garbled/incomplete | Use filename as primary title source; PDF text only for venue/year hints |
| Wrong year from arXiv ID vs conference year | Verify with web search; inject corrected year in VERIFIED_DATA |
| Duplicate papers (same content, different filenames) | Detect via title similarity; rename both with (1), (2) suffixes |
| Accidental data loss | Always create timestamped backup before renaming |
Scripts
| Script | Purpose |
|---|---|
scripts/extract.py | Stage 1: extract PDF metadata → manifest.json |
scripts/apply_verified.py | Stage 2: inject verified data into manifest |
scripts/execute.py | Stage 3: rename files from manifest (preview or execute) |
scripts/find_duplicates.py | Utility: detect near-duplicate titles in manifest |
References
references/manifest_spec.md— Full manifest JSON schemareferences/venue_abbrev.md— Standard venue abbreviation mapreferences/anti_patterns.md— Common mistakes and how to avoid them