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In this lesson, we’ll demonstrate how to load a PDF file (handbook.pdf) using LangChain’s PyPDFLoader, split it into pages, and implement a recursive chunking strategy for semantic search preprocessing.

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1. Loading the PDF

from langchain_community.document_loaders import PyPDFLoader

loader = PyPDFLoader("data/handbook.pdf")
pages = loader.load_and_split()

# Verify page count and preview
print(len(pages))            # e.g., 3
print(pages[0].page_content) # Content preview
Example output: 
3
LakeSide Bicycles Employee Handbook Welcome to the team! LakeSide Bicycles is a company that values quality, innovation, and...

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2. Configuring Recursive Character Splitter

To enable effective semantic search, we’ll split each page into smaller chunks with overlap to preserve context across boundaries. 
from langchain.text_splitter import RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter

text_splitter = RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter(
    chunk_size=200,
    chunk_overlap=50
)
chunks = text_splitter.split_documents(pages)
ParameterDescriptionValue
chunk_sizeMaximum characters per chunk200
chunk_overlapCharacters overlapping between chunks50
Adjust chunk_size and chunk_overlap based on document length, LLM context window, and vector-database performance.

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3. Why Overlap Matters

  • Context preservation: Prevents sentences from cutting off abruptly.
  • Improved retrieval: Ensures related queries find relevant segments.

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4. Inspecting the Chunks

Check how many chunks were generated and preview the first two: 
print(len(chunks))  # e.g., 40

# First chunk
print(chunks[0])

# Second chunk
print(chunks[1])
Example output: 
40
Document(page_content='LakeSide Bicycles Employee Handbook Welcome to the team! LakeSide Bicycles is a company that values quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction...', metadata={'source': 'data/handbook.pdf', 'page': 0})

Document(page_content='…We are passionate about creating and selling bicycles that meet the needs and preferences of our diverse clientele. As an employee of LakeSide Bicycles, you are expected to uphold our mission,…', metadata={'source': 'data/handbook.pdf', 'page': 0})
Each Document object contains:
  • page_content: Up to 200 characters of text.
  • metadata: Source file path and original page number, useful for citation and retrieval.

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Next Steps

With chunking complete, you can:
  1. Generate embeddings for each chunk.
  2. Build a vector index for semantic retrieval.
  3. Integrate into a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline.

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