Setup & Installation

clawhub install pdf-rename

Or with OpenClaw CLI:

openclaw skills install pdf-rename

What This Skill Does

Pdf Rename is a Documents & Knowledge skill that 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 → Rename

Anti-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>" --execute

Workflow 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:

  1. Title is correct (filename is often sufficient, but multi-word titles may differ)
  2. Year is correct (arXiv submission year ≠ conference year)
  3. 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 ready to execute
  • Duplicate titles → append (1), (2), etc.
  • Files with status needs_verification or manual_review are 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 schema
  • references/venue_abbrev.md — Standard venue abbreviation map
  • references/anti_patterns.md — Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Version History

Latest version: 1.0.0

First published: Mar 31, 2026. Last updated: Mar 31, 2026.

1 version released.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Pdf Rename free to use?
Yes. Pdf Rename is a free, open-source skill available on the OpenClaw Skills Registry.
What platforms does Pdf Rename support?
It runs on any platform that supports OpenClaw, including macOS, Linux, and Windows.