> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.phidata.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# PDF Knowledge Base

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

## Usage

<Note>
  We are using a local PgVector database for this example. [Make sure it's running](https://docs.phidata.com/vectordb/pgvector)
</Note>

```shell theme={null}
pip install pypdf
```

```python knowledge_base.py theme={null}
from phi.knowledge.pdf import PDFKnowledgeBase, PDFReader
from phi.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 `knowledge_base` with an Agent:

```python agent.py theme={null}
from phi.agent import Agent
from knowledge_base import knowledge_base

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

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

## 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.               |
| `vector_db`         | `VectorDb`                         | -                   | Vector Database for the Knowledge Base. Example: `PgVector`                                    |
| `reader`            | `Union[PDFReader, PDFImageReader]` | `PDFReader()`       | A `PDFReader` that converts the `PDFs` into `Documents` for the vector database.               |
| `num_documents`     | `int`                              | `5`                 | Number of documents to return on search.                                                       |
| `optimize_on`       | `int`                              | -                   | Number of documents to optimize the vector db on. For Example: Create an index for `PgVector`. |
| `chunking_strategy` | `ChunkingStrategy`                 | `FixedSizeChunking` | The chunking strategy to use.                                                                  |