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howtos:software:how_to_merge_pdf-files [2013/03/14 12:29 (UTC)] – markushhowtos:software:how_to_merge_pdf-files [2013/04/02 14:29 (UTC)] (current) – Added pdfconcat, additional info for convert, altered to one source link allend
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 ====== How to merge PDF-files ====== ====== How to merge PDF-files ======
-==== Introduction ==== + 
-PDF (Portable-Dokument-Format) is a filetype invented by Adobe. It is an enhancement of the earlier PS (Postscript) format. +===== Introduction ===== 
-The idea behind PDF is to make documents which have to be sent over the internet more save.+ 
 +PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format invented by Adobe. PDF is useful to present documents independent of hardware, operating system and application software. Each PDF file has a fixed layout, including page size, fonts, graphics and other information. It is also possible to encrypt a PDF file for security, or create a digital signature for authentication.
  
 <note important>Work in Progress!!!</note> <note important>Work in Progress!!!</note>
 +
 +PDF documents are created from traditional text documents via a printer driver, or as with LaTeX, created directly from source-code. One important consequence is that one cannot convert a PDF-document "back" into it's original format such as a Microsoft Word document.
 +
 +This article describes how you can merge several PDF documents into a single PDF document. For example, this is useful if you have several pages from a scanner in PDF format and want to put these files into one file. There are several tools available; some are included in the stock Slackware install as well as others that can be readily installed.
 +
 +===== Default Tools =====
 +
 +Tools which are already available on your Slackware computer if you have a complete installation.
 +
 +==== imagemagick (convert) ====
 +
 +The convert tool comes in Slackware's imagemagick package from the xap-series.
 +
 +The convert tool uses the -adjoin option to achieve this.
 +<code>convert -adjoin file1.pdf file2.pdf merged.pdf</code>
 +Thanks to jlinkels for the contribution.
 +
 +To increase the quality of the output, it is better to read the input PDF files with a higher density (in dots per inch (DPI)) and then resize the output density back to common DPI, 96 for example. I usually use an input density of 600 (after many trial and errors), and then resize with 93.75% (if you dont resize you will get a huge output file).
 +<code>convert -density 600 fileinput_1.pdf fileinput2_.pdf -resize 93.75% output.pdf</code>
 +Thanks to eXpander_ for the contribution.
 +
 +==== ghostscript (gs) ====
 +
 +The ghostscript package resides in Slackware's ap-series.
 +
 +With GhostScript you can merge PDF files on the command line.
 +<code>gs -q -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=<newfilename>.pdf <inputfilenameshere></code>
 +Thanks to mrclisdue for the contribution.
 +
 +==== pdfconcat ====
 +
 +The pdfconcat tool comes in Slackware's xpaint package from the xap-series.
 +
 +<code>pdfconcat -o <output.pdf> <input1.pdf> [...]</code>
 +Thanks to BroX for the contribution.
 +
 +==== pdfunite ====
 +
 +The pdfunite tool comes in Slackware's poppler package from the l-series.
 +
 +<code>pdfunite [options] PDF-sourcefile1..PDF-sourcefilen PDF-destfile</code>
 +Thanks to nivieru for the contribution.
 +
 +===== Additional tools =====
 +
 +Additional tools that can be easily installed.
  
 ==== pdftk ==== ==== pdftk ====
  
-==== gs (Ghostscript) ====+pdftk is available at [[http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.0/office/pdftk/|slackbuilds.org]]. It is also a command line tool and the usage is: 
 +<code>pdftk first.pdf second.pdf third.pdf cat output altogether.pdf</code> 
 +pdftk can do more things than joining PDF files, for example rotating a document by 180 degrees is done this way: 
 +<code>pdftk upsidedown.pdf cat 1-endsouth output rotated.pdf</code> 
 +Thanks to brianL and michaelk for pointing me to pdftk.
  
 ==== pdfshuffler ==== ==== pdfshuffler ====
  
 +pdfshuffler is also available at [[http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.0/office/pdfshuffler/|slackbuilds.org]]. It comes with a graphical user interface and is written in Python, therefore [[http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.0/python/pyPdf/|pyPdf]] and [[http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.0/python/pypoppler/|pypoppler]] are required in order to get this program to work. It is very convenient because it comes with a document-viewer and shows what you're doing. It has additional features like rotating or splitting PDF files.
  
 +==== pdfjam ====
  
 +pdfjam is a LaTeX-package which is unfortunately **not** included in tetex. But those of us who have installed texlive instead already have pdfjam. It is also a command line tool (like LaTeX). The documentation is available with the texdoc command
 +<code>texdoc pdfjam</code>
 +Thanks to joghi for pointing me to pdfjam.
 +
 +<note>TODO: handling bookmarks in PDF-files, which of the above tools can handle those bookmarks?</note>
  
 ====== Sources ====== ====== Sources ======
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-<!-- * Originally written by [[wiki:user:xxx | User X]] -->+  * Originally written by [[wiki:user:markush | Markus Hutmacher]] 
 <!-- * Contributions by [[wiki:user:yyy | User Y]] --> <!-- * Contributions by [[wiki:user:yyy | User Y]] -->
 +http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/which-tool-for-merging-pdf-files-4175453632/
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-{{tag>howtos template}}+

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