Coherent PDF

Command Line Toolkit

User Manual
Version 2.2 (March 2017)

Coherent Graphics Ltd

For bug reports, feature requests and comments, email
[email protected]

2017
c Coherent Graphics Limited. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-0957671140

Adobe, Acrobat, Adobe PDF, Adobe Reader and PostScript are registered trademarks of Adobe
Systems Incorporated. Windows, Powerpoint and Excel are registered trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation.
Contents

1 Basic Usage 1
1.1 Input and Output Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Input Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Working with Encrypted Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Standard Input and Standard Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.5 Doing Several Things at Once with AND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.6 Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.7 Setting the Producer and Creator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.8 PDF Version Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.9 File IDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.10 Linearization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.11 Object Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.12 Malformed Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.13 Error Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.14 Control Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.15 String Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.16 Text Encodings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.17 Font Embedding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2 Merging and Splitting 11

2.1 Merging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Splitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Splitting on Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.4 Encrypting with Split and Split Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3 Pages 15
3.1 Page Sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2 Scale Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3 Shift Page Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.4 Rotating Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.5 Flipping Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.6 Boxes and Cropping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

iii
4 Encryption and Decryption 21
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.2 Encrypting a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.3 Decrypting a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

5 Compression 23
5.1 Decompressing a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.2 Compressing a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.3 Squeezing a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

6 Bookmarks 25
6.1 List Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
6.2 Remove Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
6.3 Add Bookmarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

7 Presentations 27

8 Watermarks and Stamps 29

8.1 Add a Watermark or Logo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
8.2 Stamp Text, Dates and Times. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
8.2.1 Page Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
8.2.2 Date and Time Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
8.2.3 Bates Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
8.2.4 Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
8.2.5 Font and Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
8.2.6 Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
8.2.7 Outline Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
8.2.8 Multi-line Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
8.2.9 Special Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
8.3 Stamping Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

9 Multipage Facilities 37
9.1 Two-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
9.2 Inserting Blank Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

10 Annotations 39
10.1 List Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
10.2 Copy Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
10.3 Remove Annotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

11 Document Information and Metadata 41

11.1 Listing Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
11.2 Reading Document Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
11.3 Setting Document Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
11.4 Upon Opening a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
11.4.1 Page Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
11.4.2 Page Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
11.4.3 Display Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
 11.5 Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
11.6 Page Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

12 File Attachments 49
12.1 Adding Attachments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
12.2 Listing Attachments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
12.3 Removing Attachments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

13 Working with Images 51

13.1 Detecting Low-resolution Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

14 Fonts 53
14.1 Copying Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
14.2 Removing Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
14.3 Listing Missing Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

15 Miscellaneous 55
15.1 Draft Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
15.2 Blackening Text, Lines and Fills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
15.3 Hairline Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
15.4 Garbage Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
15.5 Change PDF Version Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
15.6 Copy ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
15.7 Remove ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
15.8 List Spot Colours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
15.9 Removing Dictionary Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
15.10Remove Clipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

A Dates 59
Typographical Conventions

Command lines to be typed are shown in typewriter font in a box. For example:

cpdf in.pdf -o out.pdf

When describing the general form of a command, rather than a particular example, square brack-
ets [] are used to enclose optional parts, and angled braces <> to enclose general descriptions
which may be substituted for particular instances. For example,

cpdf <operation> in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf

describes a command line which requires an operation and, optionally, a range. An exception is
that we use in.pdf and out.pdf instead of <input file> and <output file> to reduce
verbosity. Under Microsoft Windows, type cpdf.exe instead of cpdf.

vii
Chapter 1

Basic Usage

-o -idir <directory> -recrypt

-stdout -stdin -stdin-user <password>
-stdin-owner <password> -producer <text> -creator <text>
-change-id -l -cpdflin <filename>
-keep-l -no-preserve-objstm -create-objstm
-control <filename> -args <filename> -utf8
-stripped -raw -no-embed-font

The Coherent PDF tools provide a wide range of facilities for modifying PDF files created
by other means. There is a single command-line program cpdf (cpdf.exe under Microsoft
Windows). The rest of this manual describes the options that may be given to this program.

1.1 Input and Output Files

The typical pattern for usage is

cpdf [<operation>] <input file(s)> -o <output file>

and the simplest concrete example, assuming the existence of a file in.pdf is:

cpdf in.pdf -o out.pdf

which copies in.pdf to out.pdf. The input and output may be the same file. Of course, we
should like to do more interesting things to the PDF file than that!
Files on the command line are distinguished from other input by their containing a period.
If an input file does not contain a period, it should be preceded by -i. For example:

1
2 Chapter 1. Basic Usage

cpdf -i in -o out.pdf

A whole directory of files may be added (where a command supports multiple files) by using
the -idir option:

cpdf -merge -idir myfiles -o out.pdf

The files in the directory myfiles are considered in alphabetical order. They must all be PDF
files. If the names of the files are numeric, leading zeroes will be required for the order to be
correct (e.g 001.pdf, 002.pdf etc).

1.2 Input Ranges

An input range may be specified after each input file. This is treated differently by each operation.
For instance

cpdf in.pdf 2-5 out.pdf

extracts pages two, three, four and five from in.pdf, writing the result to out.pdf, assuming
that in.pdf contains at least five pages. Here are the rules for building input ranges:

• A dash (-) defines ranges, e.g. 1-5 or 6-3.

• A comma (,) allows one to specify several ranges, e.g. 1-2,4-5.

• The word end represents the last page number.

• The words odd and even can be used in place of or at the end of a page range to restrict
to just the odd or even pages.

• The words portrait and landscape can be used in place of or at the end of a page
range to restrict to just those pages which are portrait or landscape. Note that the meaning
of “portrait” and “landscape” does not take account of any viewing rotation in place (use
-upright first, if required). A page with equal width and height is considered neither
portrait nor landscape.

• The word reverse is the same as end-1.

• The word all is the same as 1-end.

• A range must contain no spaces.

• A tilde (˜) defines a page number counting from the end of the document rather than the
beginning. Page ˜1 is the last page, ˜2 the penultimate page etc.
Chapter 1. Basic Usage 3

For example:

cpdf in.pdf 1,2,7-end -o out.pdf

Remove pages three, four, five and six from a document.

cpdf in.pdf 1-16odd -o out.pdf

Extract the odd pages 1,3,...,13,15.

cpdf in.pdf landscape -rotate 90 -o out.pdf

Rotate all landscape pages by ninety degrees.

cpdf in.pdf 1,all -o out.pdf

Duplicate the front page of a document, perhaps as a fax cover sheet.

cpdf in.pdf ˜3-˜1 -o out.pdf

Extract the last three pages of a document, in order.

1.3 Working with Encrypted Documents

In order to perform many operations, encrypted input PDF files must be decrypted. Some
require the owner password, some either the user or owner passwords. Either password is
supplied by writing user=<password> or owner=<password> following each input file
requiring it (before or after any range). The document will not be re-encrypted upon writing.
For example:

cpdf in.pdf user=charles -info

cpdf in.pdf owner=fred reverse -o out.pdf

To re-encrypt the file with its existing encryption upon writing, which is required if only the
user password was supplied, but allowed in any case, add the -recrypt option:

cpdf in.pdf user=fred reverse -recrypt -o out.pdf

The password required (owner or user) depends upon the operation being performed. Separate
facilities are provided to decrypt and encrypt files (See Section 4).

1.4 Standard Input and Standard Output

Thus far, we have assumed that the input PDF will be read from a file on disk, and the output
written similarly. Often it’s useful to be able to read input from stdin (Standard Input) or
write output to stdout (Standard Output) instead. The typical use is to join several programs
4 Chapter 1. Basic Usage

together into a pipe, passing data from one to the next without the use of intermediate files. Use
-stdin to read from standard input, and -stdout to write to standard input, either to pipe
data between multiple programs, or multiple invocations of the same program. For example,
this sequence of commands (all typed on one line)

cpdf in.pdf reverse -stdout |

cpdf -stdin 1-5 -stdout |
cpdf -stdin reverse -o out.pdf

extracts the last five pages of in.pdf in the correct order, writing them to out.pdf. It does
this by reversing the input, taking the first five pages and then reversing the result.
To supply passwords for a file from -stdin, use -stdin-owner <password> and/or
-stdin-user <password>.
Using -stdout on the final command in the pipeline to output the PDF to screen is not
recommended, since PDF files often contain compressed sections which are not screen-readable.
Several cpdf operations write to standard output by default (for example, listing fonts). A
useful feature of the command line (not specific to cpdf) is the ability to redirect this output to
a file. This is achieved with the > operator:

cpdf -info in.pdf > file.txt

Use the -info operation (See Section 11.2), redirecting the output to file.txt.

1.5 Doing Several Things at Once with AND

The keyword AND can be used to string together several commands in one. The advantage
compared with using pipes is that the file need not be repeatedly parsed and written out, saving
time.
To use AND, simply leave off the output specifier (e.g -o) of one command, and the input
specifier (e.g filename) of the next. For instance:

cpdf -merge in.pdf in2.pdf AND -add-text "Label"

AND -merge in3.pdf -o out.pdf

Merge in.pdf and in2.pdf together, add text to both pages, append in3.pdf and write to
out.pdf.

To specify the range for each section, use -range:

cpdf -merge in.pdf in2.pdf AND -range 2-4 -add-text "Label"

AND -merge in3.pdf -o out.pdf
Chapter 1. Basic Usage 5

1.6 Units
When measurements are given to cpdf, they are in points (1 point = 1/72 inch). They may
optionally be followed by some letters to change the measurement. The following are supported:

pt Points (72 points per inch). The default.

cm Centimeters
mm Millimeters
in Inches

For example, one may write 14mm or 21.6in. In addition, the following letters stand, in some
operations (-scale-page, -scale-to-fit, -scale-contents, -shift, -mediabox,
-crop) for various page dimensions:

PW Page width
PH Page height
PMINX Page minimum x coordinate
PMINY Page minimum y coordinate
PMAXX Page maximum x coordinate
PMAXY Page maximum y coordinate
CW Crop box width
CH Crop box height
CMINX Crop box minimum x coordinate
CMINY Crop box minimum y coordinate
CMAXX Crop box maximum x coordinate
CMAXY Crop box maximum y coordinate

For example, we may write PMINX PMINY to stand for the coordinate of the lower left corner
of the page.
Simple arithmetic may be performed using the words add, sub, mul and div to stand for
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. For example, one may write 14in sub 30pt
or PMINX mul 2

1.7 Setting the Producer and Creator

The -producer and -creator options may be added to any cpdf command line to set the
producer and/or creator of the PDF file. If the file was converted from another format, the
creator is the program producing the original, the producer the program converting it to PDF.

cpdf -merge in.pdf in2.pdf -producer MyMerger -o out.pdf

Merge in.pdf and in2.pf, setting the producer to MyMerger and writing the output to out.pdf.
6 Chapter 1. Basic Usage

1.8 PDF Version Numbers

When an operation which uses a part of the PDF standard which was introduced in a later
version than that of the input file, the PDF version in the output file is set to the later version
(most PDF viewers will try to load any PDF file, even if it is marked with a later version number).
However, this automatic version changing may be suppressed with the -keep-version flag.
Here is a list of Acrobat versions together with the maximum PDF version they are intended
to support:
PDF 1.2 Acrobat 3.0
PDF 1.3 Acrobat 4.0
PDF 1.4 Acrobat 5.0
PDF 1.5 Acrobat 6.0
PDF 1.6 Acrobat 7.0
PDF 1.7 Acrobat 8.0, 9.0, 10.0
If you wish to manually alter the PDF version of a file, use the -set-version option described
in Section 15.5.

1.9 File IDs

PDF files contain an ID (consisting of two parts), used by some workflow systems to uniquely
identify a file. To change the ID, behavior, use the -change-id operation. This will create a
new ID for the output file.

cpdf -change-id in.pdf -o out.pdf

Write in.pdf to out.pdf, changing the ID.

1.10 Linearization
Linearized PDF is a version of the PDF format in which the data is held in a special manner to
allow content to be fetched only when needed. This means viewing a multipage PDF over a
slow connection is more responsive. By default, cpdf does not linearize output files. To make it
do so, add the -l option to the command line, in addition to any other command being used.
For example:

cpdf -l in.pdf -o out.pdf

Linearize the file in.pdf, writing to out.pdf.

This requires the existence of the external program cpdflin which is provided with commercial
versions of cpdf. This must be installed as described in the installation documentation provided
with your copy of cpdf. If you are unable to install cpdflin, you must use -cpdflin to let
cpdf know where to find it:
Chapter 1. Basic Usage 7

cpdf.exe -cpdflin "C:\\cpdflin.exe" -l in.pdf -o out.pdf

Linearize the file in.pdf, writing to out.pdf.

In extremis, you may place cpdflin and its resources in the current working directory,
though this is not recommended. For further help, refer to the installation instructions for your
copy of cpdf.
To keep the existing linearization status of a file (produce linearized output if the input is
linearized and the reverse), use -keep-l instead of -l.

1.11 Object Streams

PDF 1.5 introduced a new mechanism for storing objects to save space: object streams. by
default, cpdf will preserve object streams in input files, creating no more. To prevent the
retention of existing object streams, use -no-preserve-objstm:

cpdf -no-preserve-objstm in.pdf -o out.pdf

Write the file in.pdf to out.pdf, removing any object streams.

To create new object streams if none exist, or augment the existing ones, use -create-objstm:

cpdf -create-objstm in.pdf -o out.pdf

Write the file in.pdf to out.pdf, preserving any existing object streams, and creating any new ones
for new objects which have been added.

To create wholly new object streams, use both options together:

cpdf -create-objstm -no-preserve-objstm in.pdf -o out.pdf

Write the file in.pdf to out.pdf with wholly new object streams.

Files written with object streams will be set to PDF 1.5 or higher, unless -keep-version is
used (see above).

1.12 Malformed Files

There are many malformed PDF files in existence, including many produced by otherwise-
reputable applications. cpdf attempts to correct these problems silently.
Grossly malformed files will be reconstructed. The reconstruction progress is shown on
stderr (Standard Error):
8 Chapter 1. Basic Usage

./cpdf in.pdf -o out.pdf

couldn’t lex object number
Attempting to reconstruct the malformed pdf in.pdf...
Read 5530 objects
Malformed PDF reconstruction succeeded!

Sometimes files can be technically well-formed but use inefficient PDF constructs. If you are sure
the input files you are using are impeccably formed, the -fast option added to the command
line (or, if using AND, to each section of the command line). This will use certain shortcuts which
speed up processing, but would fail on badly-produced files.
The -fast option may be used with:

Chapter 3
-rotate-contents -upright -vflip -hflip
-shift -scale -scale-to-fit -scale-contents

Chapter 8
-add-text
-stamp-on -stamp-under -combine-pages

If problems occur, refrain from using -fast.

1.13 Error Handling

When cpdf encounters an error, it exits with code 2. An error message is displayed on stderr
(Standard Error). In normal usage, this means it’s displayed on the screen. When a bad or
inappropriate password is given, the exit code is 1.

1.14 Control Files

cpdf -control <filename>

cpdf -args <filename>

Some operating systems have a limit on the length of a command line. To circumvent this, or
simply for reasons of flexibility, a control file may be specified from which arguments are drawn.
This file does not support the full syntax of the command line. Commands are separated by
whitespace, quotation marks may be used if an argument contains a space, and the sequence \"
may be used to introduce a genuine quotation mark in such an argument.
Several -control arguments may be specified, and may be mixed in with conventional
command-line arguments. The commands in each control file are considered in the order in
which they are given, after all conventional arguments have been processed. It is recommended
Chapter 1. Basic Usage 9

to use -args in all new applications. However, -control will be supported for legacy
applications.
To avoid interference between -control and AND, a new mechanism has been added.
Using -args in place of -control will perform direct textual substitution of the file into the
command line, prior to any other processing.

1.15 String Arguments

Command lines are handled differently on each operating system. Some characters are reserved
with special meanings, even when they occur inside quoted string arguments. To avoid this
problem, cpdf performs processing on string arguments as they are read.
A backslash is used to indicate that a character which would otherwise be treated specially
by the command line interpreter is to be treated literally. For example, Unix-like systems
attribute a special meaning to the exclamation mark, so the command line

cpdf -add-text "Hello!" in.pdf -o out.pdf

would fail. We must escape the exclamation mark with a backslash:

cpdf -add-text "Hello\!" in.pdf -o out.pdf

It follows that backslashes intended to be taken literally must themselves be escaped (i.e. written
\\).

1.16 Text Encodings

Some cpdf commands write text to standard output, or read text from the command line or
configuration files. These are:

-info
-list-bookmarks
-set-author et al.
-list-annotations

There are three options to control how the text is interpreted:

-utf8
-stripped
-raw

Add -utf8 to use Unicode UTF8, -stripped to convert to 7 bit ASCII by dropping any high
characters, or -raw to perform no processing. The default is -stripped.
10 Chapter 1. Basic Usage

1.17 Font Embedding

Use the -no-embed-font to avoid embedding the Standard 14 Font metrics when adding text
with -add-text.
Chapter 2

Merging and Splitting

cpdf -merge in1.pdf [<range>] in2.pdf [<range>] [<more names/ranges>]

[-retain-numbering] [-remove-duplicate-fonts] -o out.pdf

cpdf -split in.pdf -o <format> [-chunk <chunksize>]

cpdf -split-bookmarks <level> in.pdf -o <format>

2.1 Merging
The -merge operation allow the merging of several files into one. Ranges can be used to
select only a subset of pages from each input file in the output. The output file consists of the
concatenation of all the input pages in the order specified on the command line. Actually, the
-merge can be omitted, since this is the default operation of cpdf.

cpdf -merge a.pdf 1 b.pdf 2-end -o out.pdf

Take page one of a.pdf and all but the first page of b.pdf, merge them and produce out.pdf.

Merge maintains bookmarks, named destinations, and name dictionaries.

Forms and other objects which cannot be merged are retained if they are from the document
which first exhibits that feature.
The -retain-numbering option keeps the PDF page numbering labels of each document
intact, rather than renumbering the output pages from 1.
The -remove-duplicate-fonts ensures that fonts used in more than one of the inputs
only appear once in the output.

11
12 Chapter 2. Merging and Splitting

2.2 Splitting
The -split operation splits a PDF file into a number of parts which are written to file, their
names being generated from a format. The optional -chunk option allows the number of pages
written to each output file to be set.

cpdf -split a.pdf -o out%%%.pdf

Split a.pdf to the files out001.pdf, out002.pdf etc.

cpdf -split a.pdf 1 even -chunk 10 -o dir/out%%%.pdf

Split the even pages of a.pdf to the files out001.pdf, out002.pdf etc. with at most ten pages in
each file. The directory (folder) dir must exist.

If the output format does not provide enough numbers for the files generated, the result is
unspecified. The following format operators may be used:

%, %%, %%% etc. Sequence number padded to the number of percent signs
@F Original filename without extension
@N Sequence number without padding zeroes
@S Start page of this chunk
@E End page of this chunk
@B Bookmark name at this page

2.3 Splitting on Bookmarks

The -split-bookmarks <level> operation splits a PDF file into a number of parts, accord-
ing to the page ranges implied by the document’s bookmarks. These parts are then written to
file with names generated from the given format.
Level 0 denotes the top-level bookmarks, level 1 the next level (sub-bookmarks) and so on.
So -split-bookmarks 1 creates breaks on level 0 and level 1 boundaries.

cpdf -split-bookmarks 0 a.pdf -o out%%%.pdf

Split a.pdf to the files out001.pdf, out002.pdf on bookmark boundaries.

Now, there may be many bookmarks on a single page (for instance, if paragraphs are book-
marked or there are two subsections on one page). The splits calculated by -split-bookmarks
ensure that each page appears in only one of the output files. It is possible to use the @ operators
above, including operator @B which expands to the text of the bookmark:

cpdf -split-bookmarks 0 a.pdf -o @B.pdf

Split a.pdf on bookmark boundaries, using the bookmark text as the filename.
Chapter 2. Merging and Splitting 13

The bookmark text used for a name is converted from unicode to 7 bit ASCII, and the following
characters are removed, in addition to any character with ASCII code less than 32:

/ ? < > \ : * | " ˆ + =

2.4 Encrypting with Split and Split Bookmarks

The encryption parameters described in Chapter 4 may be added to the command line to encrypt
each split PDF. Similarly, the -recrypt switch described in 1 may by given to re-encrypt each
file with the existing encryption of the source PDF.
Chapter 3

Pages

cpdf -scale-page "<scale x> <scale y>" in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf

cpdf -scale-to-fit "<x size> <y size>" [-scale-to-fit-scale <scale>]
in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -scale-contents [<scale>] [<position>] in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -shift "<shift x> <shift y>" in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -rotate <angle> in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -rotateby <angle> in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -rotate-contents <angle> in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -upright in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -hflip in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -vflip in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -mediabox "<x> <y> <w> <h>" in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -crop "<x> <y> <w> <h>" in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -remove-crop in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -frombox <boxname> -tobox <boxname> [-mediabox-if-missing]
in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf

3.1 Page Sizes

Any time when a page size is required, instead of writing, for instance "210mm 197mm" one
can instead write a4portrait. Here is a list of supported page sizes:

15
16 Chapter 3. Pages

a0portrait a1portrait a2portrait

a3portrait a4portrait a5portrait
a6portrait a7portrait a8portrait
a9portrait a10portrait

a0landscape a1landscape a2landscape

a3landscape a4landscape a5landscape
a6landscape a7landscape a8landscape
a9landscape a10landscape

usletterportrait usletterlandscape
uslegalportrait uslegallandscape

3.2 Scale Pages

The -scale-page operation scales each page in the range by the X and Y factors given. This
scales both the page contents, and the page size itself. It also scales any Crop Box and other
boxes (Art Box, Trim Box etc). As with several of these commands, remember to take into
account any page rotation when considering what the X and Y axes relate to.

cpdf -scale-page "2 2" in.pdf -o out.pdf

Convert an A4 page to A3, for instance.

The -scale-to-fit operation scales each page in the range to fit a given page size, preserving
aspect ratio and centering the result.

cpdf -scale-to-fit "297mm 210mm" in.pdf -o out.pdf

cpdf -scale-to-fit a4portrait in.pdf -o out.pdf

Scale a file’s pages to fit A4 portrait.

The scale can optionally be set to a percentage of the available area, instead of filling it.

cpdf -scale-to-fit a4portrait -scale-to-fit-scale 0.9 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Scale a file’s pages to fit A4 portrait, scaling the page 90% of its possible size.

The -scale-contents operation scales the contents about the center of the crop box (or, if
absent, the media box), leaving the page dimensions (boxes) unchanged.

cpdf -scale-contents 0.5 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Scale a file’s contents on all pages to 50% of its original dimensions.

Chapter 3. Pages 17

To scale about a point other than the center, one can use the positioning commands described in
Section 8.2.4. For example:

cpdf -scale-contents 0.5 -topright 20 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Scale a file’s contents on all pages to 50% of its original dimensions about a point 20pts from its top
right corner.

3.3 Shift Page Contents

The -shift operation shifts the contents of each page in the range by X points horizontally
and Y points vertically.

cpdf -shift "50 0" in.pdf even -o out.pdf

Shift pages to the right by 50 points (for instance, to increase the binding margin).

3.4 Rotating Pages

There are two ways of rotating pages: (1) setting a value in the PDF file which asks the viewer
(e.g. Acrobat) to rotate the page on-the-fly when viewing it (use -rotate or -rotateby) and
(2) actually rotating the page contents and/or the page dimensions (use -upright afterwards
or -rotate-contents to just rotate the page contents).
The possible values for -rotate and -rotate-by are 0, 90, 180 and 270, all interpreted as
being clockwise. Any value may be used for -rotate-contents.
The -rotate operation sets the viewing rotation of the selected pages to the absolute value
given.

cpdf -rotate 90 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Set the rotation of all the pages in the input file to ninety degrees clockwise.

The -rotateby operation changes the viewing rotation of all the given pages by the relative
value given.

cpdf -rotateby 90 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Rotate all the pages in the input file by ninety degrees clockwise.

The -rotate-contents operation rotates the contents and dimensions of the page by the
given relative value.
18 Chapter 3. Pages

cpdf -rotate-contents 90 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Rotate all the page contents in the input file by ninety degrees clockwise. Does not change the page
dimensions.

The -upright operation does whatever combination of -rotate and -rotate-contents

is required to change the rotation of the document to zero without altering its appearance. In
addition, it makes sure the media box has its origin at (0,0), changing other boxes to compensate.

3.5 Flipping Pages

The -hflip and -vflip operations flip the contents of the chosen pages horizontally or
vertically. No account is taken of the current page rotation when considering what ”horizontally”
and ”vertically” mean, so you may like to use -upright first.

cpdf -hflip in.pdf even -o out.pdf

Flip the even pages in in.pdf horizontally.

cpdf -vflip in.pdf -o out.pdf

Flip all the pages in in.pdf vertically.

3.6 Boxes and Cropping

All PDF files contain a media box for each page, giving the dimensions of the paper. To change
these dimensions (without altering the page contents in any way), use the -mediabox option.

cpdf -mediabox "0pt 0pt 500pt 500pt" in.pdf -o out.pdf

Set the media box to 500 points square.

The four numbers are minimum x, minimum y, width, height. x coordinates increase to the
right, y coordinates increase upwards. PDF file can also optionally contain a crop box for each
page, defining to what extent the page is cropped before being displayed or printed. A crop box
can be set, changed and removed, without affecting the underlying media box. To set or change
the crop box use -crop. To remove any existing crop box, use -remove-crop.

cpdf -crop "0pt 0pt 200mm 200mm" in.pdf -o out.pdf

Crop pages to the bottom left 200-millimeter square of the page.

cpdf -remove-crop in.pdf -o out.pdf

Remove cropping.
Chapter 3. Pages 19

Note that the crop box is only obeyed in some viewers.

cpdf -frombox <boxname> -tobox <boxname> [-mediabox-if-missing]

in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf

Copy the contents of one box to another.

This operation copies the contents of one box (Media box, Crop box, Trim box etc.) to another. If
-mediabox-if-missing is added, the media box will be substituted when the ’from’ box is
not set for a given page. For example

cpdf -frombox /TrimBox -tobox /CropBox in.pdf -o out.pdf

copies the Trim Box of each page to the Crop Box of each page. The possible boxes are
/MediaBox, /CropBox, /BleedBox, /TrimBox, /ArtBox.
Chapter 4

Encryption and Decryption

cpdf -encrypt <method> <owner> <user>

[-no-encrypt-metadata] <permissions> in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -decrypt in.pdf owner=<owner password> -o out.pdf

4.1 Introduction
PDF files can be encrypted using various types of encryption and attaching various permissions
describing what someone can do with a particular document (for instance, printing it or
extracting content). There are two types of person:
The User can do to the document what is allowed in the permissions.
The Owner can do anything, including altering the permissions or removing encryption
entirely.
There are five kinds of encryption:
• 40-bit encryption (method 40bit) in Acrobat 3 (PDF 1.1) and above
• 128-bit encryption (method 128bit) in Acrobat 5 (PDF 1.4) and above
• 128-bit AES encryption (method AES) in Acrobat 7 (PDF 1.6) and above
• 256-bit AES encryption (method AES256) in Acrobat 9 (PDF 1.7) – this is deprecated – do
not use for new documents
• 256-bit AES encryption (method AES256ISO) in PDF 2.0

All encryption supports these kinds of permissions:

-no-edit Cannot change the document
-no-print Cannot print the document
-no-copy Cannot select or copy text or graphics
-no-annot Cannot add or change form fields or annotations

21
22 Chapter 4. Encryption and Decryption

In addition, 128-bit encryption (Acrobat 5 and above) and AES encryption supports these:
-no-forms Cannot edit form fields
-no-extract Cannot extract text or graphics
-no-assemble Cannot merge files etc.
-no-hq-print Cannot print high-quality
Add these flags to the command line to prevent each operation.

4.2 Encrypting a Document

To encrypt a document, the owner and user passwords must be given (here, fred and charles
respectively):

cpdf -encrypt 40bit fred charles -no-print in.pdf -o out.pdf

cpdf -encrypt 128bit fred charles -no-extract in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -encrypt AES fred "" -no-edit -no-copy in.pdf -o out.pdf

A blank user password is common. In this event, PDF viewers will typically not prompt for a
password for when opening the file or for operations allowable with the user password.

cpdf -encrypt AES256 fred "" -no-forms in.pdf -o out.pdf

In addition, the usual method can be used to give the existing owner password, if the document
is already encrypted.
When using AES encryption, the option is available to refrain from encrypting the metadata.
Add -no-encrypt-metadata to the command line.

4.3 Decrypting a Document

To decrypt a document, the owner password is provided.

cpdf -decrypt in.pdf owner=fred -o out.pdf

The user password cannot decrypt a file.

Chapter 5

Compression

cpdf -decompress in.pdf -o out.pdf

cpdf -compress in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -squeeze in.pdf [-squeeze-log-to <filename>] -o out.pdf

cpdf provides basic facilities for decompressing and compressing PDF streams.

5.1 Decompressing a Document

To decompress the streams in a PDF file, for instance to manually inspect the PDF, use:

cpdf -decompress in.pdf -o out.pdf

If cpdf finds a compression type it can’t cope with, the stream is left compressed. When using
-decompress, object streams are not compressed.

5.2 Compressing a Document

To compress the streams in a PDF file, use:

cpdf -compress in.pdf -o out.pdf

cpdf compresses any streams which have no compression using the FlateDecode method, with
the exception of Metadata streams, which are left uncompressed.

23
24 Chapter 5. Compression

5.3 Squeezing a Document

To squeeze a PDF file, reducing its size by an average of about twenty percent (though sometimes
not at all), use:

cpdf -squeeze in.pdf -o out.pdf

Adding -squeeze to the command line when using another operation will squeeze the file or
files upon output.
The -squeeze operation writes some information about the squeezing process to standard
output. The squeezing process involves several processes which losslessly attempt to reduce
the file size. It is slow, so should not be used without thought.

$ ./cpdf -squeeze in.pdf -o out.pdf

Beginning squeeze: 123847 objects
Squeezing... Down to 114860 objects
Squeezing... Down to 114842 objects
Squeezing page data
Recompressing document

The -squeeze-log-to <filename> option writes the log to the given file instead of to
standard output.
Chapter 6

Bookmarks

cpdf -list-bookmarks [-utf8 | -raw] in.pdf

cpdf -remove-bookmarks in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -add-bookmarks <bookmark file> in.pdf -o out.pdf

PDF Bookmarks (properly called the document outline) represent a tree of references to parts of
the file, typically displayed at the side of the screen. The user can click on one to move to the
specified place. cpdf provides facilities to list, add, and remove bookmarks. The format used
by the list and add operations is the same, so you can feed the output of one into the other, for
instance to copy bookmarks.

6.1 List Bookmarks

The -list-bookmarks operation prints (to standard output) the bookmarks in a file. The
first column gives the level of the tree at which a particular bookmark is. Then the text of the
bookmark in quotes, then the page number which the bookmark points to, then (optionally) the
word ”open” if the bookmark should have its children (at the level immediately below) visible
when the file is loaded. For example, upon executing

cpdf -list-bookmarks doc.pdf

the result might be:

0 "Part 1" 1 open

1 "Part 1A" 2
1 "Part 1B" 3
0 "Part 2" 4
1 "Part 2a" 5

25
26 Chapter 6. Bookmarks

If the page number is 0, it indicates that clicking on that entry doesn’t move to a page.
By default, cpdf converts unicode to ASCII text, dropping characters outside the ASCII
range. To prevent this, and return unicode UTF8 output, add the -utf8 option to the command.
To prevent any processing, use the -raw option.

6.2 Remove Bookmarks

The -remove-bookmarks operations removes all bookmarks from the file.

cpdf -remove-bookmarks in.pdf -o out.pdf

6.3 Add Bookmarks

The -add-bookmarks file adds bookmarks as specified by a bookmarks file, a text file in ASCII
or UTF8 encoding and in the same format as that produced by the -list-bookmarks option.
If there are any bookmarks in the input PDF already, they are discarded. For example, if the file
bookmarks.txt contains the output from -list-bookmarks above, then the command

cpdf -add-bookmarks bookmarks.txt in.pdf -o out.pdf

adds the bookmarks to the input file, writing to out.pdf. An error will be given if the
bookmarks file is not in the correct form (in particular, the numbers in the first column which
specify the level must form a proper tree with no entry being more than one greater than the
last).
Chapter 7

Presentations

cpdf -presentation in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf

[-trans <transition-name>] [-duration <float>]
[-vertical] [-outward] [-direction <int>]
[-effect-duration <float>]

The PDF file format, starting at Version 1.1, provides for simple slide-show presentations in
the manner of Microsoft Powerpoint. These can be played in Acrobat and possibly other PDF
viewers, typically started by entering full-screen mode. The -presentation operation allows
such a presentation to be built from any PDF file.
The -trans option chooses the transition style. When a page range is used, it is the
transition from each page named which is altered. The following transition styles are available:

Split Two lines sweep across the screen, revealing the new page. By default the lines are
horizontal. Vertical lines are selected by using the -vertical option.

Blinds Multiple lines sweep across the screen, revealing the new page. By default the lines are
horizontal. Vertical lines are selected by using the -vertical option.

Box A rectangular box sweeps inward from the edges of the page. Use -outward to make it
sweep from the center to the edges.

Wipe A single line sweeps across the screen from one edge to the other in a direction specified
by the -direction option.

Dissolve The old page dissolves gradually to reveal the new one.

Glitter The same as Dissolve but the effect sweeps across the page in the direction specified by
the -direction option.

27
28 Chapter 7. Presentations

To remove a transition style currently applied to the selected pages, omit the -trans option.
The -effect-duration option specifies the length of time in seconds for the transition
itself. The default value is one second.
The -duration option specifies the maximum time in seconds that the page is displayed
before the presentation automatically advances. The default, in the absence of the -duration
option, is for no automatic advancement.
The -direction option (for Wipe and Glitter styles only) specifies the direction of the
effect. The following values are valid:
0 Left to right
90 Bottom to top (Wipe only)

180 Right to left (Wipe only)

270 Top to bottom
315 Top-left to bottom-right (Glitter only)
For example:

cpdf -presentation in.pdf 2-end -trans Split -duration 10 -o out.pdf

The Split style, with vertical lines, and each slide staying ten seconds unless manually advanced.
The first page (being a title) does not move on automatically, and has no transition effect.

To use different options on different page ranges, run cpdf multiple times on the file using a
different page range each time.
Chapter 8

Watermarks and Stamps

cpdf -stamp-on source.pdf

[-scale-stamp-to-fit] [<positioning command>] [-relative-to-cropbox]
in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -stamp-under source.pdf
[-scale-stamp-to-fit] [<positioning command>] [-relative-to-cropbox]
in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -combine-pages over.pdf under.pdf -o out.pdf

cpdf ([-add-text <text-format> | -add-rectangle <size>])

[-font <fontname>]
[-font-size <size-in-points>]
[-color <color>]
[-line-spacing <number>]
[-outline]
[-linewidth <number>]
[-underneath]
[-relative-to-cropbox]
[-prerotate]
[-bates <number>]
[-bates-at-range <number>]
[-bates-pad-to <number>]
[-opacity <number>]
[-midline]
[-topline]
in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf

See also positioning commands below.

cpdf -remove-text in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf

29
30 Chapter 8. Watermarks and Stamps

8.1 Add a Watermark or Logo

The -stamp-on and -stamp-under operations stamp the first page of a source PDF onto or
under each page in the given range of the input file. For example,

cpdf -stamp-on logo.pdf in.pdf odd -o out.pdf

stamps the file logo.pdf onto the odd pages of in.pdf, writing to out.pdf. A watermark
should go underneath each page:

cpdf -stamp-under topsecret.pdf in.pdf -o out.pdf

The position commands in Section 8.2.4 can be used to locate the stamp more precisely (they are
calculated relative to the crop box of the stamp). Or, preprocess the stamp with -shift first.
The -scale-stamp-to-fit option can be added to scale the stamp to fit the page before
applying it. The use of positioning commands together with -scale-stamp-to-fit is not
recommended.
The -combine-pages operation takes two PDF files and stamps each page of one over
each page of the other. The length of the output is the same as the length of the “under” file.
For instance:

cpdf -combine-pages over.pdf under.pdf -o out.pdf

Page attributes (such as the display rotation) are taken from the “under” file. For best results,
remove any rotation differences in the two files using -upright first.
The -relative-to-cropbox option takes the positioning command to be relative to the cro
box of each page rather than the media box.

8.2 Stamp Text, Dates and Times.

The -add-text operation allows text, dates and times to be stamped over one or more pages
of the input at a given position and using a given font, font size and color.

cpdf -add-text "Copyright 2014 ACME Corp." in.pdf -o out.pdf

The default is black 12pt Times New Roman text in the top left of each page. The text can be
placed underneath rather than over the page by adding the -underneath option.
Text previously added by cpdf may be removed by the -remove-text operation.

cpdf -remove-text in.pdf -o out.pdf

Chapter 8. Watermarks and Stamps 31

8.2.1 Page Numbers

There are various special codes to include the page number in the text:
%Page Page number in arabic notation (1, 2, 3. . . )
%roman Page number in lower-case roman notation (i, ii, iii. . . )
%Roman Page number in upper-case roman notation (I, II, III. . . )
%EndPage Last page of document in arabic notation
%Label The page label of the page
%EndLabel The page label of the last page
%filename The full file name of the input document
For example, the format "Page %Page of %EndPage" might become ”Page 5 of 17”.
NB: In some circumstances (e.g in batch files) on Microsoft Windows, % is a special character,
and must be escaped (written as %%). Consult your local documentation for details.

8.2.2 Date and Time Formats

%a Abbreviated weekday name (Sun, Mon etc.)
%A Full weekday name (Sunday, Monday etc.)
%b Abbreviated month name (Jan, Feb etc.)
%B Full month name (January, February etc.)
%d Day of the month (01–31)
%e Day of the month (1–31)
%H Hour in 24-hour clock (00–23)
%I Hour in 12-hour clock (01–12)
%j Day of the year (001–366)
%m Month of the year (01–12)
%M Minute of the hour (00–59)
%p ”a.m” or ”p.m”
%S Second of the minute (00–61)
%T Same as %H:%M:%S
%u Weekday (1–7, 1 = Monday)
%w Weekday (0–6, 0 = Monday)
%Y Year (0000–9999)
%% The % character.

8.2.3 Bates Numbers

Unique page identifiers can be specified by putting %Bates in the format. The starting point
can be set with the -bates option. For example:

cpdf -add-text "Page ID: %Bates" -bates 23745 in.pdf -o out.pdf

To specify that bates numbering begins at the first page of the range, use -bates-at-range
instead. This option must be specified after the range is specified. To pad the bates number
up to a given number of leading zeros, use -bates-pad-to in addition to either -bates or
-bates-at-range.
32 Chapter 8. Watermarks and Stamps

8.2.4 Position
The position of the text may be specified either in absolute terms:

-pos-center "200 200"

Position the center of the baseline text at (200pt, 200pt)

-pos-left "200 200"

Position the left of the baseline of the text at (200pt, 200pt)

-pos-right "200 200"

Position the right of the baseline of the text at (200pt, 200pt)

Positions relative to certain common points can be set:

-top 10 Center of baseline 10 pts down from the top center

-topleft 10 Left of baseline 10 pts down and in from top left
-topright 10 Right of baseline 10 pts down and left from top right
-left 10 Left of baseline 10 pts in from center left
-bottomleft 10 Left of baseline 10 pts in and up from bottom left
-bottom 10 Center of baseline 10 pts up from bottom center
-bottomright 10 Right of baseline 10 pts up and in from bottom right
-right 10 Right of baseline 10 pts in from the center right
-diagonal Diagonal, bottom left to top right, centered on page
-reverse-diagonal Diagonal, top left to bottom right, centered on page
-center Centered on page

No attempt is made to take account of the page rotation when interpreting the position, so
-prerotate must be added to the command line if the file contains pages with a non-zero
viewing rotation. This is equivalent to pre-processing the document with -upright.
The -relative-to-cropbox modifier can be added to the command line to make these
measurements relative to the crop box instead of the media box.
The default position is equivalent to -topleft 100.
The -midline option may be added to specify that the positioning commands above are
to be considered relative to the midline of the text, rather than its baseline. Similarly, the
-topline option may be used to specify that the position is taken relative to the top of the text.

8.2.5 Font and Size

The font may be set with the -font option. The 14 Standard PDF fonts are available:
Chapter 8. Watermarks and Stamps 33

Times-Roman
Times-Bold
Times-Italic
Times-BoldItalic
Helvetica
Helvetica-Bold
Helvetica-Oblique
Helvetica-BoldOblique
Courier
Courier-Bold
Courier-Oblique
Courier-BoldOblique
Symbol
ZapfDingbats
For example, page numbers in Times Italic can be achieved by:

cpdf -add-text "-%Page-" -font "Times-Italic" in.pdf -o out.pdf

See Section 14.1 for how to use other fonts.

The font size can be altered with the -font-size option, which specifies the size in points:

cpdf -add-text "-%Page-" -font-size 36 in.pdf -o out.pdf

8.2.6 Colors
The -color option takes an RGB color, where red, green and blue components range between
0 and 1. The following values are predefined:
Color R, G, B
white 1, 1, 1
black 0, 0, 0
red 1, 0, 0
green 0, 1, 0
blue 0, 0, 1

cpdf -add-text "Hullo" -color "red" in.pdf -o out.pdf

cpdf -add-text "Hullo" -color "0.5 0.5 0.5" in.pdf -o out.pdf

Partly-transparent text may be specified using the -opacity option. Wholly opaque is 1 and
wholly transparent is 0. For example:

cpdf -add-text "DRAFT" -color "red" -opacity 0.3 -o out.pdf

34 Chapter 8. Watermarks and Stamps

8.2.7 Outline Text

The -outline option sets outline text. The line width (default 1pt) may be set with the
-linewidth option. For example, to stamp documents as drafts:

cpdf -add-text "DRAFT" -diagonal -outline in.pdf -o out.pdf

8.2.8 Multi-line Text

The code \n can be included in the text string to move to the next line. In this case, the vertical
position refers to the baseline of the first line of text (if the position is at the top, top left or top
right of the page) or the baseline of the last line of text (if the position is at the bottom, bottom
left or bottom right).

cpdf -add-text "Specification\n%Page of %EndPage"

-topright 10 in.pdf -o out.pdf

The -midline option may be used to make these vertical positions relative to the midline of a
line of text rather than the baseline, as usual.
The -line-spacing option can be used to increase or decrease the line spacing, where a
spacing of 1 is the standard.

cpdf -add-text "Specification\n%Page of %EndPage"

-topright 10 -line-spacing 1.5 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Justification of multiple lines is handled by the -justify-left, -justify-right and

-justify-center options. The defaults are left justification for positions relative to the left
hand side of the page, right justification for those relative to the right, and center justification
for positions relative to the center of the page. For example:

cpdf -add-text "Long line\nShort" -justify-right

in.pdf -o out.pdf

8.2.9 Special Characters

If your command line allows for the inclusion of unicode characters, the input text will be
considered as UTF8 by cpdf. Special characters which exist in the PDF WinAnsiEncoding Latin
Chapter 8. Watermarks and Stamps 35

1 code (such as many accented characters) will be reproduced in the PDF. This does not mean,
however, that every special character can be reproduced. You must experiment.
For compatibility with previous versions of cpdf, special characters may be introduced
manually with a backslash followed by the three-digit octal code of the character in the PDF
WinAnsiEncoding Latin 1 Code. The full table is included in Appendix D of the Adobe
PDF Reference Manual, which is available at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_
reference.html.
For example, a German sharp s (ß) may be introduced by \337.

8.3 Stamping Graphics

A rectangle may be placed on one or more pages by using the -add-rectangle <size>
command. Most of the options discussed above for text placement apply in the same way. For
example:

cpdf -add-rectangle "200 300" -pos-right 30 -color red -outline

in.pdf -o out.pdf

This can be used to blank out or highlight part of the document. The following positioning
options work as you would expect: -topleft, -top, -topright, -right, -bottomright,
-bottom, -bottomleft, -left, -center. When using the option -pos-left "x y", the
point (x, y) refers to the bottom-left of the rectangle. When using the option -pos-right
"x y", the point (x, y) refers to the bottom-right of the rectangle. When using the option
-pos-center "x y", the point (x, y) refers to the center of the rectangle. The options
-diagonal and -reverse-diagonal have no meaning.
Chapter 9

Multipage Facilities

cpdf -twoup-stack in.pdf -o out.pdf

cpdf -twoup in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -pad-before in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -pad-after in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -pad-every [<integer>] in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -pad-multiple [<integer>] in.pdf -o out.pdf

9.1 Two-up
This facility puts multiple logical pages on a single physical page. The -twoup-stack opera-
tion puts two logical pages on each physical page, rotating them 90 degrees to do so. The new
mediabox is thus larger. The -twoup operation does the same, but scales the new sides down
so that the media box is unchanged.

9.2 Inserting Blank Pages

Sometimes, for instance to get a printing arrangement right, it’s useful to be able to insert blank
pages into a PDF file. cpdf can add blank pages before a given page or pages, or after. The
pages in question are specified by a range in the usual way:

cpdf -pad-before in.pdf 1 -o out.pdf

Add a blank page before page 1 (i.e. at the beginning of the document.)

cpdf -pad-after in.pdf 2,16,38,84,121,147 -o out.pdf

Add a blank page after pages 2, 16, 38, 84, 121 and 147 (for instance, to add a clean page between
chapters of a document.)

37
38 Chapter 9. Multipage Facilities

The dimensions of the padded page are derived from the boxes (media box, crop box etc.) of
the page after or before which the padding is to be applied.
The -pad-every n operation places a blank page after every n pages, excluding any last
one. For example. . .

cpdf -pad-every 3 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Add a blank page after every three pages

. . . on a 9 page document adds a blank page after pages 3 and 6.

The -pad-multiple n operation adds blank pages so the document has a multiple of n
pages. For example:

cpdf -pad-multiple 8 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Add blank pages to in.pdf so it has a multiple of 8 pages.

Chapter 10

Annotations

cpdf -list-annotations in.pdf [<range>]

cpdf -copy-annotations from.pdf to.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -remove-annotations in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf

10.1 List Annotations

The -list-annotations operation prints the textual content of any annotations on the
selected pages to standard output. Each annotation is preceded by the page number and
followed by a newline.

cpdf -list-annotations in.pdf > annots.txt

Print annotations from in.pdf, redirecting output to annots.txt.

10.2 Copy Annotations

The -copy-annotations operation copies the annotations in the given page range from one
file (the file specified immediately after the option) to another pre-existing PDF. The range is
specified after this pre-existing PDF. The result is then written an output file, specified in the
usual way.

cpdf -copy-annotations from.pdf to.pdf 1-10 -o result.pdf

Copy annotations from the first ten pages of from.pdf onto the PDF file to.pdf, writing the result
to results.pdf.

39
40 Chapter 10. Annotations

10.3 Remove Annotations

The -remove-annotations operation removes all annotations from the given page range.

cpdf -remove-annotations in.pdf 1 -o out.pdf

Remove annotations from the first page of a file only.

Chapter 11

Document Information and

Metadata

cpdf -list-fonts in.pdf

cpdf -info [-raw | -utf8] in.pdf
cpdf -page-info in.pdf
cpdf -pages in.pdf
cpdf -set-title <title of document> in.pdf -o out.pdf
(Also -set-author etc. See Section 11.3.)
cpdf -set-page-layout <layout> in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -set-page-mode <mode> in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -hide-toolbar <true | false> in.pdf -o out.pdf
-hide-menubar
-hide-window-ui
-fit-window
-center-window
-display-doc-title
cpdf -open-at-page <page number> in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -open-at-page-fit <page number> in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -set-metadata <metadata-file> in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -remove-metadata in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -print-metadata in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -add-page-labels in.pdf -o out.pdf
[-label-style <style>] [-label-prefix <string>]
[-label-startval <integer>]

cpdf -remove-page-labels in.pdf -o out.pdf

cpdf -print-page-labels in.pdf

41
42 Chapter 11. Document Information and Metadata

11.1 Listing Fonts

The -list-fonts operation prints the fonts in the document, one-per-line to standard output.
For example:

1 /F245 /Type0 /Cleargothic-Bold /Identity-H

1 /F247 /Type0 /ClearGothicSerialLight /Identity-H
1 /F248 /Type1 /Times-Roman /WinAnsiEncoding
1 /F250 /Type0 /Cleargothic-RegularItalic /Identity-H
2 /F13 /Type0 /Cleargothic-Bold /Identity-H
2 /F16 /Type0 /Arial-ItalicMT /Identity-H
2 /F21 /Type0 /ArialMT /Identity-H
2 /F58 /Type1 /Times-Roman /WinAnsiEncoding
2 /F59 /Type0 /ClearGothicSerialLight /Identity-H
2 /F61 /Type0 /Cleargothic-BoldItalic /Identity-H
2 /F68 /Type0 /Cleargothic-RegularItalic /Identity-H
3 /F47 /Type0 /Cleargothic-Bold /Identity-H
3 /F49 /Type0 /ClearGothicSerialLight /Identity-H
3 /F50 /Type1 /Times-Roman /WinAnsiEncoding
3 /F52 /Type0 /Cleargothic-BoldItalic /Identity-H
3 /F54 /Type0 /TimesNewRomanPS-BoldItalicMT /Identity-H
3 /F57 /Type0 /Cleargothic-RegularItalic /Identity-H
4 /F449 /Type0 /Cleargothic-Bold /Identity-H
4 /F451 /Type0 /ClearGothicSerialLight /Identity-H
4 /F452 /Type1 /Times-Roman /WinAnsiEncoding

The first column gives the page number, the second the internal unique font name, the third
the type of font (Type1, TrueType etc), the fourth the PDF font name, the fifth the PDF font
encoding.

11.2 Reading Document Information

The -info option prints entries from the document information dictionary, and from any XMP
metadata to standard output.

$cpdf -info pdf_reference.pdf

Encryption: 40bit
Linearized: true
Permissions: No edit
Version: 1.6
Pages: 1310
Title: PDF Reference, version 1.7
Author: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Subject: Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)
Chapter 11. Document Information and Metadata 43

Keywords:
Creator: FrameMaker 7.2
Producer: Acrobat Distiller 7.0.5 (Windows)
Created: D:20061017081020Z
Modified: D:20061118211043-02’30’
XMP pdf:Producer: Adobe PDF library 7.77
XMP xmp:CreateDate: 2006-12-21T18:19:09+01:00
XMP xmp:CreatorTool: Adobe Illustrator CS2
XMP xmp:MetadataDate: 2006-12-21T18:19:09Z
XMP xmp:ModifyDate: 2006-12-21T18:19:09Z
XMP dc:title: AI6

The details of the format for creation and modification dates can be found in Appendix A.
By default, cpdf strips to ASCII, discarding character codes in excess of 127. In order to
preserve the original unicode, add the -utf8 option. To disable all postprocessing of the string,
add -raw.

The -page-info option prints the page label, media box and other boxes page-by-page to
standard output, for all pages in the current range.

$cpdf -page-info 14psfonts.pdf

Page 1:
Label: i
MediaBox: 0.000000 0.000000 600.000000 450.000000
CropBox: 200.000000 200.000000 500.000000 500.000000
BleedBox:
TrimBox:
ArtBox:
Rotation: 0

Note that the format for boxes is minimum x, minimum y, maximum x, maximum y.

The -pages operation prints the number of pages in the file.

cpdf -pages Archos.pdf

8

11.3 Setting Document Information

The document information dictionary in a PDF file specifies various pieces of information about a
PDF. These can be consulted in a PDF viewer (for instance, Acrobat).
44 Chapter 11. Document Information and Metadata

Here is a summary of the commands for setting entries in the document information dictio-
nary:

Information Example command-line fragment

Title cpdf -set-title "Discourses"
Author cpdf -set-author "Joe Smith"
Subject cpdf -set-subject "Behavior"
Keywords cpdf -set-keywords "Ape Primate"
Creator cpdf -set-creator "Original Program"
Producer cpdf -set-producer "Distilling Program"
Creation Date cpdf -set-create "D:19970915110347-08’00’"
Modification Date cpdf -set-modify "D:19970915110347-08’00’"
Mark as Trapped cpdf -set-trapped
Mark as Untrapped cpdf -set-untrapped

(The details of the format for creation and modification dates can be found in Appendix A.
Using the date "now" uses the time and date at which the command is executed. Note also that
-producer and -creator may be used to set the producer and/or the creator when writing
any file, separate from the operations described in this chapter.)
For example, to set the title, the full command line would be

cpdf -set-title "A Night in London" in.pdf -o out.pdf

The text string is considered to be in UTF8 format, unless the -raw option is added—in which
case, it is unprocessed, save for the replacement of any octal escape sequence such as \017,
which is replaced by a character of its value (here, 15).

11.4 Upon Opening a Document

11.4.1 Page Layout
The -set-page-layout option specifies the page layout to be used when a document is
opened in, for instance, Acrobat. The possible (case-sensitive) values are:
SinglePage Display one page at a time
OneColumn Display the pages in one column
Display the pages in two columns, odd numbered pages
TwoColumnLeft
on the left
Display the pages in two columns, even numbered pages
TwoColumnRight
on the left
(PDF 1.5 and above) Display the pages two at a time, odd
TwoPageLeft
numbered pages on the left
(PDF 1.5 and above) Display the pages two at a time, even
TwoPageRight
numbered pages on the left
Chapter 11. Document Information and Metadata 45

For instance:

cpdf -set-page-layout TwoColumnRight in.pdf -o out.pdf

11.4.2 Page Mode

The page mode in a PDF file defines how a viewer should display the document when first
opened. The possible (case-sensitive) values are:
UseNone Neither document outline nor thumbnail images visible
UseOutlines Document outline (bookmarks) visible
UseThumbs Thumbnail images visible
Full-screen mode (no menu bar, window controls, or any-
FullScreen
thing but the document visible)
UseOC (PDF 1.5 and above) Optional content group panel visible
UseAttachments (PDF 1.5 and above) Attachments panel visible

For instance:

cpdf -set-page-mode FullScreen in.pdf -o out.pdf

11.4.3 Display Options

-hide-toolbar Hide the viewer’s toolbar

-hide-menubar Document outline (bookmarks) visible
-hide-window-ui Hide the viewer’s scroll bars
-fit-window Resize the document’s windows to fit size of first page
-center-window Position the document window in the center of the screen
Display the document title instead of the file name in the
-display-doc-title
title bar

For instance:

cpdf -hide-toolbar true in.pdf -o out.pdf

The page a PDF file opens at can be set using -open-at-page:

cpdf -open-at-page 15 in.pdf -o out.pdf

To have that page scaled to fit the window in the viewer, use -open-at-page-fit instead:
46 Chapter 11. Document Information and Metadata

cpdf -open-at-page-fit 15 in.pdf -o out.pdf

11.5 Metadata
PDF files can contain a piece of arbitrary metadata, often in XMP format. This is typically stored
in an uncompressed stream, so that other applications can read it without having to decode the
whole PDF. To set the metadata:

cpdf -set-metadata data.xml in.pdf -o out.pdf

To remove any metadata:

cpdf -remove-metadata in.pdf -o out.pdf

To print the current metadata to standard output:

cpdf -print-metadata in.pdf

11.6 Page Labels

It is possible to add page labels to a document. These are not the printed on the page, but
may be displayed alongside thumbnails or in print dialogue boxes by PDF readers. We use
-add-page-labels to do this, by default with decimal arabic numbers (1,2,3. . . ). We can add
-label-style to choose what type of labels to add from these kinds:

DecimalArabic 1,2,3,4,5. . .
LowercaseRoman i,ii,iii,iv,v. . .
UppercaseRoman I,II,III,IV,V. . .
LowercaseLetters a,b,c,. . . ,z,aa,bb. . .
UppercaseLetters A,B,C,. . . ,Z,AA,BB. . .
NoLabelPrefixOnly No number, but a prefix will be used if defined.

We can use -label-prefix to add a textual prefix to each label. Consider a file with twenty
pages and no current page labels (a PDF reader will assume 1,2,3. . . if there are none). We will
add the following page labels:

i, ii, iii, iv, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, A-0, A-1, A-2, A-3, A-4, A-5

Here are the commands, in order:

Chapter 11. Document Information and Metadata 47

cpdf -add-page-labels in.pdf 1-4 -label-style LowercaseRoman

-o out.pdf

cpdf -add-page-labels out.pdf 5-14 -o out.pdf

cpdf -add-page-labels out.pdf 15-20 -label-prefix "A-"

-label-startval 0 -o out.pdf

By default the labels begin at page number 1 for each range. To override this, we can use
-label-startval (we used 0 in the final command), where we want the numbers to begin at
zero rather than one.
Page labels may be removed altogether by using -remove-page-labels command. To
print the page labels from an existing file, use -print-page-labels. For example:

$ cpdf -print-page-labels cpdfmanual.pdf

labelstyle: LowercaseRoman
labelprefix: None
startpage: 1
startvalue: 1
labelstyle: DecimalArabic
labelprefix: None
startpage: 9
startvalue: 1
Chapter 12

File Attachments

cpdf -attach-file <filename> [-to-page <page number>] in.pdf -o out.pdf

cpdf -list-attached-files in.pdf
cpdf -remove-files in.pdf -o out.pdf

PDF supports adding attachments (files of any kind, including other PDFs) to an existing file.
The cpdf tool supports adding and removing document-level attachments — that is, ones which
are associated with the document as a whole rather than with an individual page, and also
page-level attachments, associated with a particular page.

12.1 Adding Attachments

To add an attachment, use the -attach-file option. For instance,

cpdf -attach-file sheet.xls in.pdf -o out.pdf

attaches the Excel spreadsheet sheet.xls to the input file. If the file already has attachments,
the new file is added to their number. You can specify multiple files to be attached by using
-attach-file multiple times. They will be attached in the given order.
The -to-page option can be used to specify that the files will be attached to the given page,
rather than at the document level. The -to-page option may be specified at most once.

12.2 Listing Attachments

To list all document- and page-level attachments, use the -list-attached-files operation.
The page number and filename of each attachment is given, page 0 representing a document-
level attachment.

49
50 Chapter 12. File Attachments

$cpdf -list-attached-files 14psfonts.pdf

0 utility.ml
0 utility.mli
4 notes.xls

12.3 Removing Attachments

To remove all document-level and page-level attachments from a file, use the -remove-files
operation:

cpdf -remove-files in.pdf -o out.pdf

Chapter 13

Working with Images

cpdf -image-resolution <minimum resolution> in.pdf [<range>]

13.1 Detecting Low-resolution Images

To list all images in the given range of pages which fall below a given resolution (in dots-per-
inch), use the -image-resolution function:

cpdf -image-resolution 300 in.pdf [<range>]

2, /Im5, 531, 684, 149.935297, 150.138267

2, /Im6, 184, 164, 149.999988, 150.458710
2, /Im7, 171, 156, 149.999996, 150.579145
2, /Im9, 65, 91, 149.999986, 151.071856
2, /Im10, 94, 60, 149.999990, 152.284285
2, /Im15, 184, 139, 149.960011, 150.672060
4, /Im29, 53, 48, 149.970749, 151.616446

The format is page number, image name, x pixels, y pixels, x resolution, y resolution. The resolutions
refer to the image’s effective resolution at point of use (taking account of scaling, rotation etc).

51
Chapter 14

Fonts

cpdf -copy-font fromfile.pdf -copy-font-page <int>

-copy-font-name <name> in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -remove-fonts in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -missing-fonts in.pdf

14.1 Copying Fonts

In order to use a font other than the standard 14 with -add-text, it must be added to the file.
The font source PDF is given, together with the font’s resource name on a given page, and that
font is copied to all the pages in the input file’s range, and then written to the output file.
The font is named in the output file with its basefont name, so it can be easily used with
-add-text.
For example, if the file fromfile.pdf has a font /GHLIGA+c128 with the name /F10 on
page 1 (this information can be found with -list-fonts), the following would copy the font
to the file in.pdf on all pages, writing the output to out.pdf:

cpdf -copy-font fromfile.pdf -copy-font-name /F10

-copy-font-page 1 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Text in this font can then be added by giving -font /GHLIGA+c128. Be aware that due to the
vagaries of PDF font handling concerning which characters are present in the source font, not
all characters may be available, or the encoding (mapping from input codes to glyphs) may be
non-obvious.

14.2 Removing Fonts

To remove embedded fonts from a document, use -remove-fonts. PDF readers will substitute
local fonts for the missing fonts. The use of this function is only recommended when file size is
the sole consideration.

53
54 Chapter 14. Fonts

cpdf -remove-fonts in.pdf -o out.pdf

14.3 Listing Missing Fonts

The -missing-fonts operation lists any unembedded fonts in the document, one per line.

cpdf -missing-fonts in.pdf

The format is

Page number, Name, Subtype, Basefont, Encoding

Chapter 15

Miscellaneous

cpdf -draft [-boxes] in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf

cpdf -blacktext in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -blacklines in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -blackfills in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -thinlines <minimum thickness> in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -clean in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -set-version <version number> in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -copy-id-from source.pdf in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -remove-id in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -list-spot-colors in.pdf
cpdf -remove-dict-entry in.pdf -o out.pdf
cpdf -remove-clipping in.pdf -o out.pdf

15.1 Draft Documents

The -draft option removes bitmap (photographic) images from a file, so that it can be printed
with less ink. Optionally, the -boxes option can be added, filling the spaces left blank with a
crossed box denoting where the image was. This is not guaranteed to be fully visible in all cases
(the bitmap may be have been partially covered by vector objects or clipped in the original). For
example:

55
56 Chapter 15. Miscellaneous

cpdf -draft -boxes in.pdf -o out.pdf

15.2 Blackening Text, Lines and Fills

Sometimes PDF output from an application (for instance, a web browser) has text in colors
which would not print well on a grayscale printer. The -blacktext operation blackens all text
on the given pages so it will be readable when printed.
This will not work on text which has been converted to outlines, nor on text which is part of
a form.

cpdf -blacktext in.pdf -o out.pdf

The -blacklines operation blackens all lines on the given pages.

cpdf -blacklines in.pdf -o out.pdf

The -blackfills operation blackens all fills on the given pages.

cpdf -blackfills in.pdf -o out.pdf

Contrary to their names, all these operations can use another color, if specified with -color.

15.3 Hairline Removal

Quite often, applications will use very thin lines, or even the value of 0, which in PDF means
”The thinnest possible line on the output device”. This might be fine for on-screen work, but
when printed on a high resolution device, such as by a commercial printer, they may be too faint,
or disappear altogether. The -thinlines option prevents this by changing all lines thinner
than <minimal thickness> to the given thickness. For example:

cpdf -thinlines 0.2mm in.pdf [<range>] -o out.pdf

Thicken all lines less than 0.2mm to that value.

15.4 Garbage Collection

Sometimes incremental updates to a file by an application, or bad applications can leave data in
a PDF file which is no longer used. This function removes that unneeded data.
Chapter 15. Miscellaneous 57

cpdf -clean in.pdf -o out.pdf

15.5 Change PDF Version Number

To change the pdf version number, use the -set-version operation, giving the part of the
version number after the decimal point. For example:

cpdf -set-version 4 in.pdf -o out.pdf

Change file to PDF 1.4.

This does not alter any of the actual data in the file — just the supposed version number.

15.6 Copy ID
The -copy-id-from operation copies the ID from the given file to the input, writing to the
output.

cpdf -copy-id-from source.pdf in.pdf -o out.pdf

Copy the id from source.pdf to the contents of in.pdf, writing to out.pdf.

If there is no ID in the source file, the existing ID is retained. You cannot use -recrypt with
-copy-id-from.

15.7 Remove ID
The -remove-id operation removes the ID from a document.

cpdf -remove-id in.pdf -o out.pdf

Remove the ID from in.pdf, writing to out.pdf.

You cannot use -recrypt with -remove-id.

15.8 List Spot Colours

This operation lists the name of any “separation” color space in the given PDF file.
58 Chapter 15. Miscellaneous

cpdf -list-spot-colors in.pdf

List the spot colors, one per line in in.pdf, writing to stdout.

15.9 Removing Dictionary Entries

This is for editing data within the PDF’s internal representation. Use with caution.

cpdf -remove-dict-entry /One in.pdf -o out.pdf

Remove the entry for /One in every dictionary in.pdf, writing to out.pdf.

15.10 Remove Clipping

The -remove-clipping operation removes any clipping paths from the file.

cpdf -remove-clipping in.pdf -o out.pdf

Remove every clipping path in in.pdf, writing to out.pdf.

Appendix A

Dates

Dates in PDF are specified according to the following format:

D:YYYYMMDDHHmmSSOHH’mm’

where:

• YYYY is the year;

• MM is the month;

• DD is the day (01-31);

• HH is the hour (00-23);
• mm is the minute (00-59);
• SS is the second (00-59);

• O is the relationship of local time to Universal Time (UT), denoted by ’+’, ’-’ or ’Z’;
• HH is the absolute value of the offset from UT in hours (00-23);
• mm is the absolute value of the offset from UT in minutes (00-59).

A contiguous prefix of the parts above can be used instead, for lower accuracy dates. For
example:

D:2014 (2014)
D:20140103 (3rd March 2014)
D:201401031854-08’00’ (3rd March 2014, 6:54PM, US Pacific Standard Time)

59
Index

annotations font, 33
copying, 39 fonts
listing, 39 listing, 42
removing, 40
attachments, 49 garbage collection, 56
adding, 49
listing, 49 hairline removal, 56
removing, 50
input files, 1
bates numbers, 31 input range, 2
blacken fills, 56
blacken lines, 56 linearization, 6
blacken text, 56
media box, 18
blank pages
merging, 11
inserting, 37
metadata, 41, 46
bookmarks, 25
adding, 26 outline text, 34
listing, 25 output files, 1
removing, 26 owner password, 3
color, 33
page
compressing, 23
labels, 47
control file, 8
layout, 44
copy ID, 57
mode, 45
crop pages, 18
numbers, 31
date, 30 range, 2
dates page labels, 47
defined, 59 page size, 15
decompressing, 23 password, 3
decryption, 3, 21 presentations, 27
document information, 41
range, 2
document outline, 25
remove ID, 57
draft, 55
removing text, 30
encryption, 21 reversing, 2
error handling, 8 rotate
contents, 18
flip pages, 18 pages, 17

61
62 Index

scale pages, 16
shift page contents, 17
splitting, 12
on bookmarks, 12
squeeze, 24
stamp text, 30
stamps, 29
standard input, 3
standard output, 3

text encodings, 9
time, 30
two-up, 37

units, 5
user password, 3

version number, 6, 57

watermarks, 29