How to Do Common PDF Tasks in Linux

We often need to do PDF tasks like splitting pages, merging multiple PDFs, rearranging pages, etc. New Linux users might struggle with these. Let’s see how to do these common PDF tasks on Linux:

0. Before we start

Required Packages

• PDF Arranger
• Poppler
• PDFtk
• GraphicsMagick

Installation

• Debian:

  sudo apt install pdfarranger poppler-utils pdftk-java graphicsmagick

• Arch Linux:

  sudo pacman -S pdfarranger poppler pdftk graphicsmagick

1. To split PDF pages

You can split the pages of a PDF in two ways - vertically and horizontally. Both can be done in PDF Arranger.

Method:

• Open file in PDF Arranger

• Select pages to split (right-click for selection options)

• Right-click again and choose Split Pages

• You’ll find two options here: Vertical Splits and Horizontal Splits. Enter how many vertical splits you want in Vertical Splits. For horizontal splits, specify the number in Horizontal Splits.

  • If you only want to split vertically, enter 1 in the Horizontal Splits field.
  • If you only want to split horizontally, enter 1 in the Vertical Splits field.

• Save (CTRL + S) or use Save as (CTRL + Shift + S) for custom location/name

2. To merge multiple PDFs

Often we need to combine multiple PDFs into a new one. You can easily do this using pdfunite from Poppler:

pdfunite first.pdf second.pdf third.pdf output.pdf

3. To extract PDF pages

If you need to extract one or more pages from a PDF:

• To extract a range of pages into a single PDF

pdftk infile.pdf cat first-last output outfile.pdf

Here, replace first with the page number of the first page you want to extract from the main file. Similarly, replace last with the page number of the last page.

• To create separate PDFs for each extracted page

pdfseparate -f first -l last infile.pdf outfile-%d.pdf

This command will create separate PDFs for each page from first to last. If you only want to extract one page, use that page’s number for both first and last. In this case, you can omit %d from the output filename.

4. To reorder PDF pages

In PDF Arranger, you can easily rearrange PDF pages via drag-and-drop. Open the desired file, left-click and hold to drag pages to their new positions. Don’t forget to save when done.

5. To create PDF from images

To combine multiple images into a PDF, use this command:

gm convert 1.jpg 2.jpg 3.jpg out.pdf

6. To convert a PDF to images

• To convert each page to an image

pdftoppm -jpeg input.pdf output

• To convert a specific page to an image

pdftoppm -jpeg -f page -singlefile input.pdf output

This tutorial covered common PDF operations on Linux. Notice how command-line tools are often simpler and more powerful than GUI alternatives. Therefore, my advice to new users is to get comfortable using the terminal. Thanks for reading!

Some information was collected from ArchWiki. Learn more at this link.