Stapler - A python utility for manipulating PDF docs based on pypdf

Question

Link to github:
http://github.com/hellerbarde/stapler/tree/master
* Dependencies *
Stapler depends only on the packages python and python-pypdf, both of
which can be found in the archlinux repositories.
* History *
Stapler is a pure python replacement for PDFtk, a tool for manipulating PDF
documents from the command line. PDFtk was written in Java, and natively
compiled with gcj. And it has been discontinued a few years ago and bitrot is
setting in (i.e. it does not compile anymore in archlinux).
Since I used it quite a lot, I decided to look for an alternative and found
pypdf, a PDF library written in pure Python. I couldn't find a tool which
actually uses the library, so I started writing my own.
At some point I plan on providing a GUI, but the command line version will
always exist.
* License *
A simplified BSD Style license describes the terms under which Stapler is
distributed. A copy of the BSD Style License used is found in the file "LICENSE"
* Usage *
I am too lazy at the moment to learn how to create a proper man page so this has
to suffice.
There are 4 modes in Stapler:
- cat:
  Works like the normal unix utility "cat", meaning it con_cat_enates files. 
  The syntax is delightfully simple:
    Syntax
    stapler cat input1 [input2, input3, ...] output
    Example:
    stapler cat a.pdf b.pdf c.pdf output.pdf
    # this would append "b.pdf" and "c.pdf" to "a.pdf" and write the whole 
    # thing to "output.pdf"
  you can specify as many input files as you want, it always cats all but the
  last file specified and writes the whole thing into the last file specified
- split:
  Splits the specified pdf files into their single pages and writes each page
  into it's own pdf file with this naming scheme:
    ${origname}p${zeropaddedpagenr}.pdf
  Syntax:
    stapler split input1 [input2 input3 ...]
  Example for a file foobar.pdf with 20 pages:
    $ stapler split foobar.pdf
    $ ls
      foobarp01.pdf foobarp02.pdf ... foobarp19.pdf foobarp20.pdf
  Multiple files can be specified, they will be processed as if you called
  single instances of stapler.
- select/delete (called with sel and del respectively)
  These are the most sophisticated modes. With select you can cherrypick pages
  out of pdfs and concatenate them into a new pdf file.
  Syntax:
    stapler sel input1 page_or_range [page_or_range ...] [input2 p_o_r ...]
  Example:
    stapler sel a.pdf 1 4-8 20-40 b.pdf 1-5 output.pdf
    # this generates a pdf called output.pdf with the following pages:
    # 1, 4-8, 20-40 from a.pdf, 1-5 from b.pdf in this order
  What you _cannot_ do yet is not to specifying any ranges. I will probably merge
  select and cat at some point in the future so that you can specify pages and
  ranges, and if you don't, it just uses the whole file.
  The delete command works almost exactly the same as select, but inverse.
  It cherrypicks the pages and ranges which you _didn't_ specify out of the
  pdfs.
contact me if you have questions about usage or anything, really
2009, Philip Stark (heller <dot> barde <at> gmail <dot> com)
Last edited by Heller_Barde (2009-08-05 21:02:54)

Answer 1

firecat53 wrote:
Are you planning on adding eventually the full functionality of pdftk -- rotate, watermark, encrypt, etc?  I occasionally use pdftk, and I'd like to see a replacement since it's apparently having troubles keeping up to date. Great work!
Scott
if you help me with ideas for the command syntax, sure why not. pypdf supports these things. can you make a complete list of things pdftk does that would be important to port over? and how the command line syntax for these features work. I'll then get working
EDIT: I just had a look at the pdftk man page (didn't think of that when i wrote the above...) there are some things that will not be possible with the current version of pypdf (and frankly i doubt there is going to be a new release):
update_info (because there is no way to write document properties with pypdf, you can read them just fine though)
fill_form  (similar reason. it's just not supported)
the rest will be fine. I'll rename split to burst and then I'll mimic the cat function. the others should be no problem either.
although... i didn't find anything on rotate in the pdftk manual. how should i implement a rotate function? Rotate complete documents or single pages?
cheers
Phil
Last edited by Heller_Barde (2009-08-06 07:08:42)