The PDF Toolkit (Pdftk) - A Complex FREE PDF Solution. Franck’s rant on the today’s GOTD - Simpo PDF Merge & Split
GiveawayOfTheDay.com Series (17)
Another funny joke from GOTD today… Why would anyone bother to install SimpoPDF Merge&Split ? (I’m not even speaking about paying for it!)
If one knows why I do no longer post at GOTD, one knows it was because my comment asking this question and drawing some quick solutions was censored (like today, it was a pdf merge, splite, rotate, protect, unprotect whatever pdf tool).
Basically, the answer to the aforeasked question is : “Ignorance”.
There is a great tool named pdftk (for pdf toolkit) that is a free GPL-licensed command-line program that allows you to split, merge, rotate, apply stamps, modify metadatas, add/remove security and much more…
Unfortunately, it is command-line only…
pdftk homepage
Fortunately, there are free GUI for pdftk around the web!
First interface : GUI for pdftk by DirkPaehl
This open-source GUI exists in windows version and Linux version.
It’s really richly featured, and I think it can do as much as pdftk can.
Unfortunately, the interface is quite ugly and not really intuitive…
Still, it’s free, portable (even if it comes with an installer, it installs no dependancies, so you can just carry away its folder as long as you keep the pdftk command-line executable inside !) and perfectly functional. So why would one decide to use something such Simpo Pdf merge&Split which is not free (apart today), certainly not portable and so so so less feature rich ?
Second interface: PDFTK Builder
This one is also open-source, really user-friendly although a little less feature-rich than GUI for pdftk (as far as I constated by myself).
Anyway you can split, merge, protect/unprotect, rotatate, and apply stamps…
It’s also free and portable (although coming with an installer, you can carry away its folder as long as you keep the pdftk command-line executable inside !). If you use Liberkey, it is one of the supported app, so you can take profit of all Liberkey facilities, and especially the auto-update when one is available…
Last word : obviously, if you grabbed Nitro PDF Professional 5 or 6 when there were promotions, you can already do all these things. Even a little more : for instance, when it comes to spliting, Nitro can split page by page, by range of pages, or by bookmarks… (example : split chapter 1, chapter 2, provided there are such bookmarks in the pdf… but given Nitro can also easily auto-create bookmarks according to text style, it’s easy to create all chapter bookmarks in less than a minute !)
Have a nice day all…
.
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15 Responses to “The PDF Toolkit (Pdftk) - A Complex FREE PDF Solution. Franck’s rant on the today’s GOTD - Simpo PDF Merge & Split”
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I used to use this software before, but ever since I grabbed Nitro PDF, I switch to the latter and have been much satisfied. But kudos to the 4Free team to introduce this piece of nice tool to everyone, it was certainly very usable.
Thanks Franck for sharing interesting stuff.
Thanks Franck for keeping us away from junk.
Cheers!
Is Pdftk working on W7 Franck ? ( don’t think so)
Thanks Franck!
Nice to see pdftk on 4Free.
Great PDF stuff !
Thanks, Franck!
Keep us informed.
Regards!
@Gwen…
I just tried and PDFTK Builder and GUI for PDFtk work on Win 7 64bits home edition.
Thanks Franck for the information,
There’s another free tool PDFfill, (you might have seen this for sure) which can do all these functions with GUI. its not a open source one, and need Ghostscript installed
Thanks for the kind answer Franck !
Thanks for telling us about this Franck, I must admit that apart from a few excellent progs (online armor ++) GAOTD seems to be churning out a lot of cr*p these days. I know they can only put out what they are given but really some of the stuff is a real waste of time and effort. The only good thing is some of the tips given in the comments are good
Thanks Franck ! For everything !
Thanks but i got nitro express here not too long ago…..thanks again.
CZ
I use a portable (As long as you have Java) and open source tool called PdfSam (Pdf split and merge). The basic version is is free. Available HERE ( pdfsam.org/?page_id=42 )
It is based on Java, so you’ll need Java virtual machine installed.
I suppose it does most things as described above and little more. I found it enough for my use and it’s rather simple too.
Description taken from main site as I cannot say it any better.
pdfsam basic: (Free version.)
A simple tool designed to split and merge pdf files. With it’s simple and intuitive interface you can:
* split your pdf documents (into chapters, single pages, etc.).
* merge many pdf documents or subsections of them.
* extract sections of your document into a single pdf document.
* mix alternate pages taken from two pdf documents in straight or reverse order into a single document.
* rotate pages of the selected pdf documents.
* visually reorder pages of a selected pdf document.
* visually compose a document dragging pages from selected pdf documents.
* save and load your environment to automatize your recurrent jobs.
* manage pdfsam settings and set an environment to load at start up.
pdfsam enhanced: (Not free)
This is the enhanced version of pdfsam. In this version you’ll find all the basic features plus:
* encrypt your pdf files (RC40 bits, RC128 bits, AES128 bits) and set permissions on them.
* add a pdf frontpage or an addendum (or both) to your pdf documents.
* decrypt pdf documents.
* extract attachments from your pdf documents.
* set viewer options to a document to tell the viewer application how should open the document.
* set the metadata of a document (author, title, subject and keywords).
Hope someone finds this useful.
Nice one Thanks