Page Selection

Page Selection

Many commands accept -p / --pages. pdfcpu2 understands a small expression language for selecting pages.

Syntax

Expression	Meaning
3	page 3
1-3	pages 1 through 3
1- / -3	open ended ranges: from 1 / up to 3
l	last page
ll	second to last page
even / odd	all even / odd pages
!2-4	negation: all pages except 2–4
1-3,7,l	comma-separated union
even,!2	combinations

Print the full definition anytime:

pdfcpu2 selectedpages

Command line

pdfcpu2 rotate in.pdf 90 -p odd              # rotate odd pages
pdfcpu2 trim -p 1-3,7- in.pdf out.pdf        # keep selection
pdfcpu2 extract -m text -p l-2 in.pdf -      # careful: ranges are ascending; use 2-l
pdfcpu2 nup out.pdf 9 img.jpg --pages=3-     # everything from page 3

Page numbers are 1-based. Repeated pages in a selection are allowed only where a sequence is built (Collect); for processing commands duplicates are ignored.

Go API

Page selections are passed as []string, mirroring the CLI syntax:

package main

import (
	"context"

	"github.com/huzpsb/pdfcpu2/pkg/api"
	"github.com/huzpsb/pdfcpu2/pkg/pdfcpu/model"
)

func main() {
	ctx := context.Background()
	conf := model.NewDefaultConfiguration()

	// Rotate odd pages by 90 degrees clockwise.
	err := api.RotateFile(ctx, "in.pdf", "out.pdf", 90, []string{"odd"}, conf)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
}

For fine-grained control, api.PagesForPageSelection(pageCount, selection, ensureAllForNone, false) resolves a selection into a page set you can inspect before running an operation.