cpdf -merge in1.pdf [<range>] in2.pdf [<range>] [<more names/ranges>] [-collate] [-collate-n <n>] [-retain-numbering] [-merge-add-bookmarks [-merge-add-bookmarks-use-titles]] [-remove-duplicate-fonts] [-process-struct-trees] [-subformat <subformat>] -o out.pdf
cpdf -split in.pdf [-chunk <chunksize>] [-process-struct-trees] -o <format>
cpdf -split-bookmarks <level> in.pdf [-utf8] [-process-struct-trees] -o <format>
cpdf -split-max <file size> in.pdf [-process-struct-trees] -o <format>
cpdf -spray in.pdf [-process-struct-trees] -o a.pdf [-o b.pdf [-o ...]]
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.
cpdf -merge -idir files -o out.pdf
Merge all files from directory files, producing out.pdf.
Merge maintains and merges bookmarks, named destinations, annotations, tagged PDF information, and so on. PDF features which cannot be merged are retained if they are from the document which first exhibits that feature.
The -collate option collates pages: that is to say, it takes the first page from the first document and its range, then the first page from the second document and its range and so on. When all first pages have been taken, it begins on the second from each range, and so on. To collate in chunks use, for example, -collate-n 2.
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 option ensures that fonts used in more than one of the inputs only appear once in the output.
The -merge-add-bookmarks option adds a top-level bookmark for each file, using the filename. Any existing bookmarks are retained. The -merge-add-bookmarks-use-titles, when used in conjunction with -merge-add-bookmarks, will use the title from each PDF’s metadata instead of the filename.
The -process-struct-trees option will merge structure trees (the data which forms the logical structure of the PDF). In its absence, the structure tree from the first PDF only is preserved. When merging two or more PDF/UA files, we can add -subformat PDF/UA-2 to tell Cpdf to add a top-level Document structure tree element, to conform to the PDF/UA-2 standard.
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 a.pdf even AND -split -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, if any. |
| @b<w>@ | Bookmark name at this page, if any, truncated to <w> characters. |
Numbers padded to a fixed width field by zeroes may be obtained for @S and @E by following them with more @ signs e.g @E@@@ for a fixed width of three.
The -split-bookmarks <level> operation splits a PDF file into a number of parts, according 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.
There may be many bookmarks on a single page (for instance, if paragraphs are bookmarked 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.
The bookmark text used for a name has the following characters are removed, in addition to any character with ASCII code less than 32 or equal to 126. In addition, names beginning with . are not produced.
/ ? < > \ : * | " ˆ + =
The bookmark may be truncated by using the @b variant:
cpdf -split-bookmarks 0 a.pdf -o @b10@.pdf
Split a.pdf on bookmark boundaries, using the first 10 characters of bookmark text as the filename.
The -split-max operation splits a file into chunks of no more than the given size, starting at the beginning. The suffixes kB, KiB, MB, MiB, GB, and GiB may be used to give the size. For example:
cpdf -split-max 100kB in.pdf -o out%%%.pdf
Split in.pdf into parts of no more than 100kB, if possible.
Should the operation not be possible for the given size, an error message is printed and no output (not even partial output) is produced.
Spraying is a sort of de-collation. It takes one input file, and writes pages in turn to one or more outputs:
cpdf -spray in.pdf -o a.pdf -o b.pdf
Place odd pages of the input file in one file, and the even in another.
This is the only time more than one -o is allowed.
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 Chapter 1 may by given to re-encrypt each file with the existing encryption of the source PDF.
The -process-struct-trees option used in conjunction with any splitting command will trim the structure tree (the data which forms the logical structure of the PDF) for each output file. In its absence, the structure tree is preserved wholesale in each output file.