the_information_nexus/tech_docs/QPDF-Tools-and-Usage-Guide.md

qpdf

• Summary: A powerful command-line program that performs transformations on PDF files.
• Projects: Encrypting, decrypting, merging, splitting, and compressing PDF files; modifying PDF metadata.
• Commands:
  • Encrypt: qpdf --encrypt user-password owner-password 128 -- input.pdf encrypted.pdf
  • Decrypt: qpdf --password=your-password --decrypt encrypted.pdf decrypted.pdf
  • Merge: qpdf --empty --pages file1.pdf file2.pdf -- output.pdf
  • Split: qpdf input.pdf --split-pages=output_
  • Compress: qpdf --stream-data=compress input.pdf compressed.pdf

fix-qdf

• Summary: Repairs or normalizes QDF files (a special type of PDF file used for editing).
• Projects: Repairing QDF files that have become corrupted or are not functioning correctly.
• Command: fix-qdf input.qdf output.pdf

qpdfview

• Summary: A tabbed PDF viewer using the Poppler library.
• Projects: Viewing multiple PDFs simultaneously in a tabbed interface; useful for comparing documents or multitasking.
• Command: qpdfview input.pdf

zlib-flate

• Summary: A command-line tool to compress or decompress data using zlib.
• Projects: Compressing or decompressing streams within PDF files.
• Command:
  • Compress: echo "Hello" | zlib-flate -compress > compressed.fl
  • Decompress: zlib-flate -uncompress < compressed.fl

pdftopdf

• Summary: A PDF conversion and manipulation tool, often used for preparing PDFs for printing.
• Projects: Optimizing PDF files for printing, such as booklet printing or page scaling.
• Command: pdftopdf --booklet true input.pdf output.pdf

pdfdetach

• Summary: Extracts embedded files (attachments) from a PDF.
• Projects: Retrieving embedded files from PDF documents for separate analysis or use.
• Command: pdfdetach -saveall input.pdf

pdfattach

• Summary: Attaches files to a PDF.
• Projects: Adding supplementary files or data to a PDF document.
• Command: pdfattach --attach-file data.txt input.pdf output.pdf

pdfgrep

• Summary: Searches text in PDF files, similar to the Unix grep command.
• Projects: Finding specific text in large PDF documents or across multiple PDF files.
• Command: pdfgrep "search term" input.pdf

pdfseparate

• Summary: Extracts individual pages from a PDF.
• Projects: Creating separate PDFs for each page of a document, useful for distributing individual pages.
• Command: pdfseparate input.pdf output_%d.pdf

pdfunite

• Summary: Merges several PDF files into one.
• Projects: Combining multiple PDF documents into a single file.
• Command: pdfunite input1.pdf input2.pdf output.pdf

pdftocairo

• Summary: Converts PDFs to other file formats like PNG, JPEG, PS, EPS, SVG.
• Projects: Converting PDF pages to images for use in web development, graphics design, or presentations.
• Command: pdftocairo -png input.pdf output