VS Code + pdfmcp: setup guide

Add pdfmcp to VS Code / GitHub Copilot agent mode via mcp.json.

What you need: a free pdfmcp API key — sign in with your email (no password) and copy the key shown at first login. Then replace pdfmcp_live_YOUR_KEY in the config below.

Where it goes: .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace (or user-level MCP config)

{
  "servers": {
    "pdfmcp": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.pdfmcp.org/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "X-API-Key": "pdfmcp_live_YOUR_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Steps

Get a free API key from the pdfmcp dashboard and replace pdfmcp_live_YOUR_KEY in the config.
Save the file, then open the Command Palette → “MCP: List Servers” and start pdfmcp.
In Copilot Chat agent mode, the pdfmcp tools appear in the tools picker.
Try: “Use pdfmcp's pdf_to_text on this file and summarise it”.

Troubleshooting

401 / unauthorized: the key header is missing or mistyped. The header name is exactly X-API-Key (Claude Code uses Authorization: Bearer … — both work).
Tools don't appear: fully restart the client after editing its config; most clients only load MCP servers at startup.
Server unreachable: check the public status page — and your network's outbound HTTPS to mcp.pdfmcp.org.

Try it with

Compress PDF On-deviceReduce file size with Ghostscript. Presets: light (printer quality), medium (ebook), heavy (screen, smallest).OCR — searchable PDF API · MCPMake a scanned PDF searchable: pages without a text layer are OCR'd with Tesseract and gain an invisible text layer; pages that already have text are passed through and reported as skipped.PDF to Word (DOCX) API · MCPConvert a PDF to an editable Word document. Text-based conversion: paragraphs and headings are reconstructed from the text layer; exact layout, tables and images are not preserved.

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