Syntax for merging entire PDF files

[rbro]

If I needed to merge the entire a1.pdf and a2.pdf into b.pdf, is the best way to do it with:

qpdf --empty --pages a1.pdf 1-z a2.pdf 1-z -- b.pdf

Is there a way it can be called without specifying 1-z for each page? It would ideal if I could call it with something like:

qpdf --empty --pages a1.pdf a2.pdf -- b.pdf

which would then allow me to call it with wildcards like:

qpdf --empty --pages a*.pdf -- b.pdf

Thanks for your help.

[qpdf]

I'm afraid there isn't a way to do it without the 1-z, but you can use a trick like this:

qpdf --empty --pages $(for i in a*.pdf; do echo $i 1-z; done) -- b.pdf

The syntax above would work with bash or any Bourne-shell or Korn-shell compatible shell. Will that meet your needs?

[rbro]

Yes, that's a neat idea. I will use that for now. Would it be possible to add the ability to do it directly in the future? I find myself often needing to combine entire pdf files on the command line. Thanks.

[qpdf]

I'll put it on the to-do list. It should be doable without creating any significant ambiguity. Thanks for the suggestion.

[qpdf]

I'll leave the issue open and will resolve it if/when I add this to a future version.

[qpdf]

This issue is targeted for 4.2.0 which I hope to get out within the week.

[qpdf]

I have implemented this change. I'm closing this issue. 4.2.0 is ready to go, a little later than I hoped.

[lukeenglish]

Hi, can you post the syntax to do this so myself and others visiting this issue from google know how to do this as of 4.2.0?

[jberkenbilt]

You can now do

qpdf --empty --pages *.pdf -- out.pdf

[lukeenglish]

Thanks Jay

[X1z1]

In qpdf 6.0.0, if i use
qpdf --empty --pages *.pdf -- out.pdf
i get "open *.pdf: Invalid argument".

So every time I need to specify the name of files (like "qpdf --empty --pages a1.pdf a2.pdf -- out.pdf").
Why "qpdf --empty --pages *.pdf -- out.pdf" don't work?

[jberkenbilt]

What operating system or shell are you using? This will only work on a UNIX/Linux like system that does wildcard expansion in the shell. If you are using this on Windows, it will not work.

[X1z1]

I use Windows.
There is a command (or batch script) in Windows that automatically merge all pdfs in a folder.

[Kittukahier]

Hello X1z1, I also use Windows, and I have Cygwin installed in Windows, somehow it emulates a UNIX/Linux like system, it gives you a shell or terminal to work with.
So I've installed "qpdf", I've got two documents, doc01.pdf (4 pages) and doc02.pdf (1 page). I needed to merge doc02.pdf as page # 4, so I did like this:

qpdf doc01.pdf --pages doc01.pdf 1-3 doc02.pdf 1 doc01.pdf 4 -- out.pdf

And it worked perfectly.

[CMCDragonkai]

Is there an opposite syntax for splitting? That is split all pages of a pdf into separate files while the filenames are enumerated from a template?

Because right now I am manually figuring out the number of pages, and then running a page extraction for each page.

[jberkenbilt]

@CMCDragonkai See #30 and #110. I think I'm going to add something soon.

[alexhunsley]

Any word on how to do this when there are spaces in the PDF filenames?
if there are spaces, even escaped ones ('\ '), qpdf cannot handle them.

[jberkenbilt]

qpdf doesn't care what the file names are. If you are having a problem with spaces in file names, it's probably a shell escaping problem. If you are having too much trouble getting your shell to escape things properly, you can put each argument, one argument per line, in a file and use @file syntax as explained in qpdf --help.

[devurandom]

I don't seem to understand the syntax: I try to use qpdf --pages primary-document.pdf {other,documents}.pdf -- out.pdf (the {x,y} is expanded by my shell) and get this error message: qpdf: an output file name is required; use - for standard output. There are no spaces in the filenames. Version is 8.2.1.

[jberkenbilt]

@devurandom You need an input file. It's treating out.pdf as the input file. If you don't have an input file, you can use --empty. Try qpdf --empty --pages primary-document.pdf {other,documents}.pdf -- out.pdf.

[jberkenbilt]

Alternatively, you can repeat primary-document.pdf for qpdf primary-document.pdf --pages primary-document.pdf {other,documents}.pdf -- out.pdf. The difference here is that document-level structure such as outlines, page numbers, etc., will be copied from the primary document.

[GreenRaccoon23]

Windows/PowerShell users also need to put quotes around the -- argument.

For example, running this:

qpdf --empty --pages input.pdf -- output.pdf

Results in this error:

qpdf: error at * in numeric range *output.pdf: unexpected character

The correct syntax for PowerShell is this:

qpdf --empty --pages input.pdf '--' output.pdf

[tarifa10]

hello dear all

i just run into terrible issues: see here for more deatails: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=6151676#post6151676

martin@mx:~/Dokumente/kalender/ueberschaar__fixes_urlaub
$ qpdf 98_225.pdf --pages . 1-z:even -- odd.pdf

qpdf: error at * in numeric range 1-z*:even: unexpected character

Usage: qpdf [options] infile outfile
For detailed help, run qpdf --help

martin@mx:~/Dokumente/kalender/ueberschaar__fixes_urlaub
$ 
martin@mx:~/Dokumente/kalender/ueberschaar__fixes_urlaub
$ qpdf 98_225.pdf --pages 98_225.pdf 1-z:odd -- even.pdf

qpdf: error at * in numeric range 1-z*:odd: unexpected character

Usage: qpdf [options] infile outfile
For detailed help, run qpdf --help

now i finally encountered that there something is totally wrong with my system: i cannot copy and paste commands - this does not work here. so i finally do one thing: i will type all the commands character by character...

question: should i type each of the four lines - i guess so. i guess that i need all the four lines.

look forward to hear from you - either here or there https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=6151676#post6151676