pdfmanipulate is crappy

Bryan Higgins · 11-08-2011, 07:09 PM

pdfmanipulate split file page-number

seems to result in "page-number" forward, not a single page.

pdfmanipulate crop

sometimes results in a trashed file that Adobe Reader can't open. Of the hundred or so files I had to process, about 15% had this result.

Not ready for prime time, I'd say. I thought I'd put this out there for those doing a web search--beware!

gweminence · 11-09-2011, 03:19 AM

If only there was something in the documentation that warned users that pdf was the WORST format to try to work with....

Oh, wait...

Bryan Higgins · 11-09-2011, 01:36 PM

If only there were documentation. In order to find out if pdfmanipulate did what I wanted, I had to install it and then type pdfmanipulate -help. It appeared to do what I wanted, so I planned my project, only to find that it's buggy as hell (not to mention extremely slow).

It's not the worst format to work with if you have decent tools. pdftk, by the way, has a command-line interface (which is what I was looking for) and seems very robust. It lacks the crop feature, though.

I couldn't get calibre off of my machine fast enough...

Serpentine · 11-09-2011, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryan Higgins

pdfmanipulate split file page-number

seems to result in "page-number" forward, not a single page.

I assume you are using something like : pdfmanipulate split test.pdf 8 -o wat.pdf

This will split page 8 and onwards from the input. You seem to expect this to return a pdf only with page 8? If that is the case, you could try using two steps(i.e split 11-12 -> split 12 -> 12.pdf) - it is labeled split for a reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryan Higgins

pdfmanipulate crop

sometimes results in a trashed file that Adobe Reader can't open. Of the hundred or so files I had to process, about 15% had this result.

Welcome to using a format which is not intended for manipulation.

You could always give some samples or at least explain a bit more, rather than just aimlessly moaning.

gweminence · 11-09-2011, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryan Higgins

If only there were documentation.

Here, allow me to do the work for you.

Quote:

I couldn't get calibre off of my machine fast enough...

Don't let the door hit you on the way out...

alansplace · 11-09-2011, 04:34 PM

PeterT · 11-09-2011, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gweminence

Here, allow me to do the work for you.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out...

Actually, the online documentation on pdfmanipulate IS a bit sparse

Quote:

pdfmanipulate command ...
command can be one of the following: [crop, decrypt, encrypt, info, merge, reverse, rotate, split]

Use pdfmanipulate command –help to get more information about a specific command

Manipulate a PDF.

Whenever you pass arguments to pdfmanipulate that have spaces in them, enclose the arguments in quotation marks.

[options]
--help, -h
show this help message and exit

--version
show program’s version number and exit

DoctorOhh · 11-09-2011, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeterT

Actually, the online documentation on pdfmanipulate IS a bit sparse

When I first looked at the docs I thought the same thing. But on second look it is not as sparse as it looks. It lists all of the commands.

Quote:

pdfmanipulate command ...
command can be one of the following: [crop, decrypt, encrypt, info, merge, reverse, rotate, split]

Then it tells you how to get full syntax/help on each command.

Quote:

Use pdfmanipulate command –help to get more information about a specific command.

Pretty much covers it all.

Bryan Higgins · 11-11-2011, 01:43 AM

Yes, the online documentation for pdfmanipulate is minimal, quoted by PeterT above in its entirety. The manual should describe what the command does and its available options, and perhaps include some examples, not merely tell you to run the program to get help.

I guess I did misinterpret "split." Decent documentation would describe what it does. But if "split 11-12" gets you 11 and 12, as Serpentine says, shouldn't "split 8-8" give you only 8? I tried that, too ("8-8" appears to be equivalent to "8"). How bizarre that it can extract ranges of two or more, but not a single page, the lone exception!

Mysteriously, files created by specifying -o did not get the requested name. For example, -o file01.pdf might result in file23.pdf or file40.pdf.

But no matter: I found another program, pdftk, (which appears to be quite robust) to do the page extraction.

The real problems came with "crop," which I was forced to rely on as I couldn't find anything else that cropped via a command line. As I said, it worked only on about 85% of the files I needed to crop. The files were all similar, so I couldn't tell you any pattern as to what it had trouble with. In those 15% of cases the resulting files couldn't be opened by Adobe Reader due to a PDF format error.

Anyway, perhaps Calibre is a good ebook organizer (I didn't explore it) but pdfmanipulate I'm afraid is not fit for public consumption.

11-08-2011, 07:09 PM	#1
Bryan Higgins Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: none	pdfmanipulate is crappy pdfmanipulate split file page-number seems to result in "page-number" forward, not a single page. pdfmanipulate crop sometimes results in a trashed file that Adobe Reader can't open. Of the hundred or so files I had to process, about 15% had this result. Not ready for prime time, I'd say. I thought I'd put this out there for those doing a web search--beware!

11-09-2011, 04:34 PM	#6
alansplace Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,886 Karma: 464403178 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: 33.9388° N, 117.2716° W Device: Kindles K-2, K-KB, PW 1 & 2, Voyage, Fire 2, 5 & HD 8, Surface 3, iPad	don't feed the troll

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11-09-2011, 03:19 AM	#2
gweminence Fat Guy Posts: 408 Karma: 24165 Join Date: Jun 2010 Device: Kindle Voyage	If only there was something in the documentation that warned users that pdf was the WORST format to try to work with.... Oh, wait...

11-09-2011, 01:36 PM	#3
Bryan Higgins Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: none	If only there were documentation. In order to find out if pdfmanipulate did what I wanted, I had to install it and then type pdfmanipulate -help. It appeared to do what I wanted, so I planned my project, only to find that it's buggy as hell (not to mention extremely slow). It's not the worst format to work with if you have decent tools. pdftk, by the way, has a command-line interface (which is what I was looking for) and seems very robust. It lacks the crop feature, though. I couldn't get calibre off of my machine fast enough...

11-11-2011, 01:43 AM	#9
Bryan Higgins Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2011 Device: none	Yes, the online documentation for pdfmanipulate is minimal, quoted by PeterT above in its entirety. The manual should describe what the command does and its available options, and perhaps include some examples, not merely tell you to run the program to get help. I guess I did misinterpret "split." Decent documentation would describe what it does. But if "split 11-12" gets you 11 and 12, as Serpentine says, shouldn't "split 8-8" give you only 8? I tried that, too ("8-8" appears to be equivalent to "8"). How bizarre that it can extract ranges of two or more, but not a single page, the lone exception! Mysteriously, files created by specifying -o did not get the requested name. For example, -o file01.pdf might result in file23.pdf or file40.pdf. But no matter: I found another program, pdftk, (which appears to be quite robust) to do the page extraction. The real problems came with "crop," which I was forced to rely on as I couldn't find anything else that cropped via a command line. As I said, it worked only on about 85% of the files I needed to crop. The files were all similar, so I couldn't tell you any pattern as to what it had trouble with. In those 15% of cases the resulting files couldn't be opened by Adobe Reader due to a PDF format error. Anyway, perhaps Calibre is a good ebook organizer (I didn't explore it) but pdfmanipulate I'm afraid is not fit for public consumption.

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