# Programmatic editing

Source: https://sdk.pdf.net/docs/v1/guides/programmatic-editing



Not every edit comes from a person clicking the page: an AI assistant rewriting a paragraph, a pipeline stamping generated text, a chat-driven "fix the wording on page 3". `useProgrammaticEditor` edits the document without any visible UI, and the edits flow through the same document as user edits.

## Reading the text [#reading-the-text]

`getParagraphsByPage` loads a page and returns its paragraphs in content order as plain text entries: `id`, `content`, the 1-based `pageNumber`, and the paragraph bounds in user space. For example, collecting a page's text for an AI prompt:

```tsx
import { useProgrammaticEditor } from '@sdk-pdf/react'

function useReadPageText() {
  const { getParagraphsByPage } = useProgrammaticEditor()

  return async (pageId: string) => {
    const paragraphs = await getParagraphsByPage(pageId)
    return paragraphs.map((paragraph) => paragraph.content).join('\n\n')
  }
}
```

To read the whole document, `getAllParagraphIds` returns every paragraph id in page and content order, and `getPlainTextParagraphs` resolves ids to the same plain text entries. It loads every page sequentially, which can take a long time for a large document, so prefer `getParagraphsByPage` when the page is known.

## Editing paragraphs [#editing-paragraphs]

`getParagraphEditor` returns an editor mirror for one paragraph: an object with the operations of a text editor (`focus`, `selectAll`, `insertText`, `deleteAll`) minus the screen. Replacing a paragraph's text is select all, delete, then insert:

```tsx
const { getParagraphEditor } = useProgrammaticEditor()

function replaceParagraphText(paragraphId: string, newText: string) {
  const editor = getParagraphEditor(paragraphId)

  // The paragraph may be gone: deleted by an undo since it was read.
  if (!editor) return false

  editor.selectAll()
  editor.deleteAll()
  editor.insertText(newText)
  return true
}
```

## Presence for collaborators [#presence-for-collaborators]

Real-time collaboration is coming soon. Once it ships, giving the programmatic editor a presence shows its cursor to collaborators like any other participant's:

```tsx
const { setEditorAwarenessProperties, removeEditorAwarenessCursor } =
  useProgrammaticEditor()

setEditorAwarenessProperties({ name: 'AI assistant', color: '#7c3aed' })

// ... edit the paragraphs ...

// Hide the cursor once the work is done.
removeEditorAwarenessCursor()
```