qpdf Examples: Merging, Splitting, Compressing PDF Files

WIP Alert This is a work in progress. Current information is correct but more content may be added in the future.

Select one page

You have a file multipage.pdf and you want to extract the first page into a new file page1.pdf:

$ qpdf multipage-file.pdf --pages . 1 -- page1.pdf

Select multiple pages

You have a file multipage.pdf and you want to extract pages 1 to 5 page into a new file pages1-5.pdf:

$ qpdf multipage-file.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- pages1-5.pdf

Compress PDF file

Generate an optimized (smaller in smaller) version of input.pdf.

Other options to try out:

• --recompress-flate
• --optimize-images
• --compression-level=N (where n is an integer)

$ qpdf --compress-streams=y --object-streams=generate input.pdf output.pdf

Merge multiple pages into one file

TODO

Add password fo PDF file

Passing the password twice in the command is not a typo. Owner password VS user password

Add password "foobar" to file file.pdf, creating a new file called file-encrypted.pdf:

$ qpdf --encrypt foobar foobar 128 -- file.pdf file-encrypted.pdf

Add password to PDF file, inplace

If you don't want to create a copy of the file with password, but modify the file inplace instead:

Use --replace-input modifier, using "foobar" as the password:

$ qpdf --replace-input --encrypt foobar foobar 128 -- file.pdf

Remove password from PDF file

Use --decrypt and provide the password to generate a copy of the file, without password

$ qpdf --decrypt --password=foobar original-file-encrypted.pdf file-decrypted.pdf