PDF Knowledge Base

Learn how to use local PDF files in your knowledge base.

The PDFKnowledgeBase reads local PDF files, converts them into vector embeddings and loads them to a vector database.

Usage

We are using a local PgVector database for this example. Make sure it’s running

pip install pypdf

knowledge_base.py

from agno.knowledge.pdf import PDFKnowledgeBase, PDFReader
from agno.vectordb.pgvector import PgVector

pdf_knowledge_base = PDFKnowledgeBase(
    path="data/pdfs",
    # Table name: ai.pdf_documents
    vector_db=PgVector(
        table_name="pdf_documents",
        db_url="postgresql+psycopg://ai:ai@localhost:5532/ai",
    ),
    reader=PDFReader(chunk=True),
)

Then use the pdf_knowledge_base with an Agent:

agent.py

from agno.agent import Agent

agent = Agent(
    knowledge=pdf_knowledge_base,
    search_knowledge=True,
)
agent.knowledge.load(recreate=False)

agent.print_response("Ask me about something from the knowledge base")

PDFKnowledgeBase also supports async loading.

pip install qdrant-client

We are using a local Qdrant database for this example. Make sure it’s running

async_knowledge_base.py

import asyncio

from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.knowledge.pdf import PDFKnowledgeBase, PDFReader
from agno.vectordb.qdrant import Qdrant

COLLECTION_NAME = "pdf-reader"

vector_db = Qdrant(collection=COLLECTION_NAME, url="http://localhost:6333")

# Create a knowledge base with the PDFs from the data/pdfs directory
knowledge_base = PDFKnowledgeBase(
    path="data/pdf",
    vector_db=vector_db,
    reader=PDFReader(chunk=True),
)

# Create an agent with the knowledge base
agent = Agent(
    knowledge=knowledge_base,
    search_knowledge=True,
)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # Comment out after first run
    asyncio.run(knowledge_base.aload(recreate=False))

    # Create and use the agent
    asyncio.run(agent.aprint_response("How to make Thai curry?", markdown=True))

Params

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
path	Union[str, Path]	-	Path to PDF files. Can point to a single PDF file or a directory of PDF files.
reader	Union[PDFReader, PDFImageReader]	PDFReader()	A PDFReader or PDFImageReader that converts the PDFs into Documents for the vector database.

PDFKnowledgeBase is a subclass of the AgentKnowledge class and has access to the same params.

Developer Resources

• View Sync loading Cookbook
• View Async loading Cookbook