pdfstitch

pdfstitch does a similar job to pdfnup but focuses on the following features:

• Crop pages to a certain size
• Adjust the crop position per page

It has been created to print sewing patterns distributed as A4 or Letter PDFs on a large format printer thus saving oneself the hassle of cutting and gluing individual pages.

License

pdfstitch is free software under the GNU GPL version 3. See LICENSE for details.

Dedication

pdfstitch is dedicated to the memory of Janka "marsi" Kuhfuß.

Dependencies

pdfstitch makes use of the following Perl modules:

• File::Basename (part of perl base)
• File::LibMagic
• Getopt::Long (part of perl base)
• PDF::API2
• YAML

On Debian, you can install them with:

# apt install libfile-libmagic-perl libpdf-api2-perl libyaml-perl

On FreeBSD, you can install them with:

# pkg install p5-File-LibMagic p5-PDF-API2 p5-YAML

Usage

1. Run pdfstitch on your input PDF:

   ./pdfstitch [--genmeta] [--defaultcrop=0.9] foobar.pdf

   This will generate a YAML file called foobar.pdf.stitch. Edit this file according to the desired output. This is also the default action if called with a PDF. Per default 10% (factor 0.9) is applied as crop factor. You can adjust this value with the --defaultcrop parameter.

2. Optional: Generate a preview and/or cropped PDF:

   ./pdfstitch --preview foobar.pdf.stitch

   This will generate a new PDF called foobar-preview.pdf. It contains only the pages you select in the YAML file with each page being overlayed with a transparent box showing the area the page will be cropped to.

   ./pdfstitch --crop foobar.pdf.stitch

   This will generate a new PDF called foobar-cropped.pdf. It contains only the pages you select in the YAML file with each page being cropped accordingly.

3. Generate the final stitched PDF:

   ./pdfstitch --stitch foobar.pdf.stitch

   This will generate a single-page PDF called foobar-stitched.pdf with all selected pages being stitched together as specified in the YAML file. This is also the default action if called with just a YAML file.

Notes

• The output file name is based on the .stitch file name.
• All output files are placed in the current working directory.