Manipulate Acrobat PDF Files with pdftk Toolkit

Adobe Acrobat PDF files is the popular de-facto business document format and printable document format that are distributed by email circulation or published via Web. The PDF documents are mostly static and ‘dead lock’, meaning readers can’t really manipulate on PDF files without expensive Adobe Acrobat software or buying third-party PDF editor. If you want to manipulate and manage Acrobat PDF files, pdftk is a GPL freeware command line utility that can do the tasks.

PDF Hacks, the developer of pdftk, describes that ff PDF is electronic paper, then pdftk is an electronic staple-remover, hole-punch, binder, secret-decoder-ring, and X-Ray-glasses. Pdftk is a simple command line tool for doing everyday things with PDF documents, which can be used to do the following functions or features:

• Merge PDF Documents
• Split PDF Pages into a New Document
• Rotate PDF Pages or Documents
• Decrypt Input as Necessary (Password Required)
• Encrypt Output as Desired
• Fill PDF Forms with FDF Data or XFDF Data and/or Flatten Forms
• Apply a Background Watermark or a Foreground Stamp
• Report on PDF Metrics such as Metadata, Bookmarks, and Page Labels
• Update PDF Metadata
• Attach Files to PDF Pages or the PDF Document
• Unpack PDF Attachments
• Burst a PDF Document into Single Pages
• Uncompress and Re-Compress Page Streams
• Repair Corrupted PDF (Where Possible)

Best of all, pdftk has been compiled and built to support and run on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD and Solaris. And for system platform that does not have pre-compiled setup package, it’s possible to download the source code and build pdftk manually. And, no installation of Adobe Acrobat Reader needed in order to use pdftk.

Download pdftk-1.41.exe.zip for Windows. For other build versions, usage guide, syntax, examples, source code and changelog, visit pdftk homepage.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 2:35 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.