pdfbook2(1)

📦 version 76924, in arch rolling, debian bookworm, debian trixie, fedora 43, fedora 44, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 pdfbook2 — the manual, but make it cute 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to pdfbook2, the little icon that turns your regular PDFs into actual booklets you can print and fold like a real-life zine. she's giving craft night, she's giving printer energy. let's go. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

pdfbook2 — transform pdf files into booklets for double-sided printing 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

pdfbook2 [ options ] INPUT [ INPUT, ...]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so basically: you give her some INPUT PDF files and she hands you back print-ready PDF files formatted for booklet printing. the resulting files need to be printed in landscape / long edge double sided printing, okay? don't come for her if you print them wrong, she told you. ✋

the default paper format depends on the locale and is chosen by pdfjam. you can set it yourself with the --paper option if the vibe is off. 🌈

before the pdf gets composed, the INPUT file is cropped to the relevant area so all that unnecessary white space just… leaves. no cap. and in this process, all pages are cropped to the same dimensions — she's consistent like that. you can also define extra margins at the edges of the booklet and in the middle, where the binding happens. that's the little spine moment, the main character of the whole thing. 📖

the OUTPUT gets written to INPUT-book.pdf. existing files will be overwritten — yes really, she will not hesitate, so back up your stuff bestie. 😭 and all input files are processed seperately.

🌟 EXAMPLE 🌟

to simply create a booklet from input.pdf you can use

pdfbook2 input.pdf

to create input-book.pdf. slay. 💅

to select a special type of paper you can do

pdfbook2 --paper=letter input.pdf

for letter, or

pdfbook2 --paper=a4paper input.pdf

for standard A4. 🌸

to increase the inner margin for binding use

pdfbook2 --inner-margin=200 input.pdf

to increase the default value of 150. 💖

you can submit multiple files to the script for processing like

pdfbook2 input1.pdf input2.pdf

which will result in input1-book.pdf and input2-book.pdf. two booklets, two vibes, one command. iconic. 👑

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • --version — show the program's version number and exit 🫶
  • -h, --help — show the help message and exit

💜 GENERAL 💜

  • -p, --paper=STR — the format of the output paper dimensions, as a latex keyword (e.g. a4paper, letterpaper, legalpaper, ...) 📄
  • -s, --short-edge — format the booklet for short-edge double-sided printing
  • -n, --no-crop — prevent the cropping to the content area (she'll leave your whitespace alone, respect) 🧚

🎀 MARGINS 🎀

  • -o, --outer-margin=INT — defines the outer margin in the booklet (default: 40)
  • -i, --inner-margin=INT — defines the inner margin between the pages in the booklet (default: 150) — this is the binding baddie 💅
  • -t, --top-margin=INT — defines the top margin in the booklet (default: 30)
  • -b, --bottom-margin=INT — defines the bottom margin in the booklet (default: 30)

🌈 ADVANCED 🌈

  • --signature=INT — define the signature for the booklet handed to pdfjam. needs to be multiple of 4 (default: 4)
  • --signature*=INT — same as --signature
  • --resolution=INT — resolution used by ghostscript in bp (default: 72) 👻

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

pdfbook(1), pdfjam(1), pdfcrop(1)

💖 ABOUT 💖

📜 LICENSE 📜

this program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

this program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. see the GNU General Public License for more details. you should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

okay that's the whole page bestie, no notes, everything's there, we didn't skip a single flag 💅✨

and that's a wrap!! this whole thing is pdfbook2 v1.4 — the source lives at <https://github.com/jenom/pdfbook2> — and the page itself is dated January 22, 2020. mwah. 😘 go print a booklet, you deserve it. 💖🦋🎀

📦 where this page comes from