PDF Support in llama.cpp vs Gemma‑4 – Which to Use?
Use Gemma‑4's built‑in PDF parsing for multi‑modal PDF tasks instead of feeding PDFs to llama.cpp, which treats them as text or images.
Use Gemma‑4's built‑in PDF parsing for multi‑modal PDF tasks instead of feeding PDFs to llama.cpp.
Summary
The post discusses how llama.cpp currently handles PDFs by treating them as either plain text or images, which fails to capture the multi‑modal nature of PDF documents. It contrasts this with Gemma‑4, which lists PDF parsing as a core feature, enabling richer extraction of text, math, tables, and images. The author asks whether to use llama‑cpp‑python, transformers, or another library for PDF tasks. No new releases or updates are mentioned, and the article remains a question rather than a feature announcement. The discussion highlights the limitation of llama.cpp’s PDF support and points to Gemma‑4 as a more suitable option for multi‑modal PDF processing.
Key changes
- llama.cpp treats PDFs as either text or images, lacking multi‑modal support.
- Gemma‑4 lists PDF parsing as a core feature.
- The article asks which library to use for PDF tasks.
- No new releases or updates are mentioned.