PDF command line tools

i wrote 3 simple, single-purpose command line utilities manipulate pdf documents:

pdfcat - concatenate (join, fuse) pdf documents
pdfcrop - crop (adjust margins of) pdf documents
pdfsplit - split (extract pages from) pdf documents

can downloaded here. each comes own man page. there small shell script move tools , man pages appropriate directories, not mandatory. read readme file.

idea have lightweight (the tar ball less 60 kb in size) , panic-proof works after download, without dependencies, compilation, installation, setup or learning curve. 2 tools (pdfcrop , pdfsplit) take arguments beyond obvious file names understand plain english, , order of arguments optimized interactive use: file crop or split, crop size or page ranges, , redirection of standard output new file. basic use, there no options memorize.

tools work in scripts, of course, , each can used filter in pipe.

less familiar terminal, these keys 1 uses navigate man pages: space bar, d, e (down 1 page, half page, 1 line), b, u, y (up 1 page, half page, 1 line), g, g (start, end), , /, n (search, next), q (quit). surprisingly efficient. factored differently: space bar, b (down, 1 page), d, u (down, half page), e, y (down, 1 line).

check result of command line pdf manipulations in preview, use os x's "open" command: $ open file.pdf (the dollar sign bash prompt).

macrumors member seemed natural post here first, if know other places people find pdf tools, please come forward. also, comments, questions, ideas, complaints or other feedback might have appreciated; use e-mail address @ bottom of man pages , readme file, or post here have voice heard (and tap wisdom of) thousands of people instead of me.

 

preview of quite well, fyi.

 

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