PDFTK (PDF Toolkit) is a command-line tool that allows users to manipulate PDF files in various ways, including combining, splitting, and modifying PDF documents. This article focuses on using PDFTK to concatenate a range of pages from one or more PDF files into a new PDF file.
Overview
Concatenation is the process of merging multiple PDF files or a range of pages from one or more PDF files into a single PDF document. PDFTK simplifies this task with a straightforward command-line interface. The resulting PDF file retains the original order of pages, allowing for various use cases such as merging chapters of a book, assembling reports, or creating custom presentations.
Concatenating Pages
To concatenate a range of pages from one or more PDF files into a new PDF file, follow these steps:
Open the Terminal or Command Prompt: Launch your system’s terminal or command prompt. Ensure that PDFTK is installed and available in your system’s PATH.
Use the cat
Command:
The cat
command is used to concatenate pages. The basic syntax for concatenating PDF files or pages is as follows:
pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf cat output output.pdf
Replace file1.pdf
, file2.pdf
, and output.pdf
with the appropriate file names and paths. This command concatenates file1.pdf
and file2.pdf
into a new PDF file called output.pdf
.
Concatenate Specific Pages:
To concatenate specific pages from a source PDF file, use the cat
command with a range specification. For example, to concatenate pages 3 to 6 from source.pdf
, use the following command:
pdftk source.pdf cat 3-6 output output.pdf
This command concatenates pages 3 to 6 from source.pdf
into a new PDF file called output.pdf
.
Concatenate Multiple Ranges: You can concatenate multiple ranges of pages from a single PDF file or from multiple PDF files into the same output file. For example:
pdftk A=source1.pdf B=source2.pdf cat A1-3 B4-6 A4 output output.pdf
This command concatenates pages 1 to 3 from source1.pdf
and pages 4 to 6 from source2.pdf
and page 4 from source1.pdf
into a new PDF file called output.pdf
.
Conclusion
PDFTK is a powerful tool for concatenating pages from one or more PDF file into a new PDF document. Whether you need to merge chapters of a book, assemble a report, or create custom presentations, PDFTK provides a convenient and efficient way to perform these tasks. With the ability to specify page ranges, you have full control over the content you want to include in the final document.