---
name: "pdf2djvu"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "pdf2djvu"
version: "0.9.18.2-2.1+b4"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pdf2djvu"
---

# pdf2djvu(1)

creates DjVu files from PDF files

## NAME

pdf2djvu - creates DjVu files from PDF files

## SYNOPSIS

**pdf2djvu** \[{**-o** \| **--output**} *output-djvu-file*\] \[*option*...\] *pdf-file*...

**pdf2djvu** {**-i** \| **--indirect**} *index-djvu-file*  \[*option*...\] *pdf-file*...

**pdf2djvu** {**--version** \| **--help** \| **-h**}

## DESCRIPTION

This program creates a DjVu file from one or more Portable Document Format files.

## OPTIONS

**pdf2djvu** accepts the following options:

### Document type, file names

- **-o**, **--output=***output-djvu-file*

  Generate a bundled multi-page document. Write the file into *output-djvu-file* instead of standard output.

- **-i**, **--indirect=***index-djvu-file*

  Generate an indirect multi-page document. Use *index-djvu-file* as the index file name; put the component files into the same directory. The directory must exist and be writable.

- **--page-id-template=***template*

  Specifies the naming scheme for page identifiers. Consult the “TEMPLATE LANGUAGE” section for the template language description.

  The default template is “p{page:04\*}.djvu”.

  For portability reasons, page identifiers:

  • must consist only of lowercase ASCII letters, digits, \_, +, - and dot,

  • cannot start with a +, - or a dot,

  • cannot contain two consecutive dots,

  • must end with the .djvu or the .djv extension.

- **--page-id-prefix=***prefix*

  Equivalent to “--page-id-template=*prefix*{page:04\*}.djvu”.

- **--page-title-template=***template*

  Specifies the template for page titles. Consult the “TEMPLATE LANGUAGE” section for the template language description.

  The default template is “{label}”.

- **--no-page-titles**

  Don't set page titles.

### Resolution, page size

- **-d**, **--dpi=***resolution*

  Specifies the desired resolution to *resolution* dots per inch. The default is 300 dpi. The allowed range is: 72 ≤ *resolution* ≤ 6000.

- **--media-box**

  Use MediaBox to determine page size. CropBox is used by default.

- **--page-size=***width***x***height*

  Specifies the preferred page size to *width* pixels × *height* pixels. The actual page size may be altered in order to respect aspect ratio and DjVu limitations on resolution. (This option takes precedence over **-d**/**--dpi**.)

- **--guess-dpi**

  Try to guess native resolution by inspecting embedded images. Use with care.

### Image quality

- **--bg-slices=***n***+***...***+***n*, **--bg-slices=***n***,***...***,***n*

  Specifies the encoding quality of the IW44 background layer. This option is similar to the **-slice** option of **c44**. Consult the [**c44**(1)](/c44/1.md) manual page for details. The default is 72+11+10+10.

- **--bg-subsample=***n*

  Specifies the background subsampling ratio. The default is 3. Valid values are integers between 1 and 12, inclusive.

- **--fg-colors=default**

  Try to preserve all the foreground layer colors. This is the default.

- **--fg-colors=web**

  Reduce foreground layer colors to the web palette (216 colors). This option is not recommended.

- **--fg-colors=***n*

  Use GraphicsMagick to reduce number of distinct colors in the foreground layer to *n*. Valid values are integers between 1 and 4080. This option is not recommended.

- **--fg-colors=black**

  Discard any color information from the foreground layer.

- **--monochrome**

  Render pages as monochrome bitmaps. With this option, **--bg-***...* and **--fg-***...* options are not respected.

- **--loss-level=***n*

  Specifies the aggressiveness of the lossy compression. The default is 0 (lossless). Valid values are integers between 0 and 200, inclusive. This option is similar to the **-losslevel** option of **cjb2**; consult the [**cjb2**(1)](/cjb2/1.md) manual page for details. This option can be used only if the **--monochrome** option is also enabled.

- **--lossy**

  Synonym for **--loss-level=100**.

- **--anti-alias**

  Enable font and vector anti-aliasing. This option is not recommended.

### Extraction

- **--no-metadata**

  Don't extract the metadata.

  By default:

  • The following entries of the document information dictionary are extracted: Title, Author, Subject, Creator, Producer, CreationDate, ModDate. Timestamps are formatted according to **RFC 3999**\[1\], with date and time components separated by a single space.

  • The XMP metadata is extracted (or created) and updated accordingly.

  **Note**\
   If multiple input documents are specified, only metadata of the first one is taken into account.

- **--verbatim-metadata**

  Keep the original metadata intact.

- **--no-outline**

  Don't extract the document outline.

- **--hyperlinks=border-avis**

  Make hyperlink borders always visible.

  By default, a hyperlink border is visible only when the mouse is over the hyperlink.

- **--hyperlinks=#***RRGGBB*

  Force the specified border color for hyperlinks.

- **--no-hyperlinks**, **--hyperlinks=none**

  Don't extract hyperlinks.

- **--no-text**

  Don't extract the text.

- **--words**

  Extract the text. Record the location of every word. This is the default.

- **--lines**

  Extract the text. Record the location of every line, rather that every word.

- **--crop-text**

  Extract no text outside the page boundary.

- **--no-nfkc**

  Do not apply **NFKC**\[2\] normalization on the text, except for characters from the **Alphabetic Presentation Forms block**\[3\] (U+FB00–U+FB4F), which are normalized unconditionally.

  The default is to apply NFKC normalization on all characters.

- **--filter-text=***command-line*

  Filter the text through the *command-line*. The provided filter must preserve whitespace, control characters and decimal digits.

  This option implies **--no-nfkc**.

- **-p**, **--pages=***page-range*

  Specifies pages to convert. *page-range* is a comma-separated list of sub-ranges. Each sub-range is either a single page (e.g. 17) or a contiguous range of pages (e.g. 37-42). Duplicate page numbers are not allowed. Pages are numbered from 1.

  The default is to convert all pages.

### Performance

- **-j**, **--jobs=***n*

  Use *n* threads to perform conversion. The default is to use one thread.

- **-j0**, **--jobs=0**

  Determine automatically how many threads to use to perform conversion.

### Verbosity, help

- **-v**, **--verbose**

  Display more informational messages while converting the file.

- **-q**, **--quiet**

  Don't display informational messages while converting the file.

- **--version**

  Output version information and exit.

- **-h**, **--help**

  Display help and exit.

## ENVIRONMENT

The following environment variables affects **pdf2djvu** on Unix systems:

*OMP\_\**

Details of runtime behavior with respect to parallelism can be controlled by several environment variables. Please refer to the **OpenMP API specification**\[4\] for details.

*TMPDIR*

**pdf2djvu** makes heavy use of temporary files. It will store them in a directory specified by this variable. The default is /tmp.

## TEMPLATE LANGUAGE

### Template syntax

The template language is roughly modeled on the **Python string formatting syntax**\[5\].

A template is a piece of text which contains fields, surrounded by curly braces {}. Fields are replaced with appropriately formatted values when the template is evaluated. Moreover, {{ is replaced with a single { and }} is replaced with a single }.

### Field syntax

Each field consists of a variable name, optionally followed by a shift, optionally followed by a format specification.

The shift is a signed (i.e. starting with a + or - character) integer.

The format specification consists of a colon, followed by a width specification.

The width specification is a decimal integer defining the minimum field width. If not specified, then the field width will be determined by the content. Preceding the width specification with a zero (0) character enables zero-padding.

The width specification is optionally followed by an asterisk (\*) character, which increases the minimum field width to the width of the longest possible content of the variable.

### Available variables

*dpage*

Page number in the DjVu document.

*page*, *spage*

Page number in the PDF document.

*label*

Page label (logical page number) in the PDF document.

This variable is available only for page titles.

## IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS

### Layer separation algorithm

Unless the **--monochrome** option is on, pdf2djvu uses the following naive layer separation algorithm:

 1\. For each page, do the following:

 1\. Rasterize the page into a pixmap, in the usual manner.

 2\. Rasterize the page into another pixmap, omitting the following page elements:

• text,

• 1 bit-per-pixel raster images,

• vector elements (except fills of large areas).

 3\. Compare both pixmaps, pixel by pixel:

 1\. If their colors match, classify the pixel as a part of the background layer.

 2\. Otherwise, classify the pixel as a part of the foreground layer.

## BUG REPORTS

If you find a bug in pdf2djvu, please report it at **the issue tracker**\[6\] or to **the mailing list**\[7\].

## SEE ALSO

[**djvu**(1)](/djvu/1.md), [**djvudigital**(1)](/djvudigital/1.md), [**csepdjvu**(1)](/csepdjvu/1.md)

## NOTES

- 1\.

  RFC 3999

  https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3339

- 2\.

  NFKC

  https://unicode.org/reports/tr15/

- 3\.

  Alphabetic Presentation Forms block

  https://unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFB00.pdf

- 4\.

  OpenMP API specification

  https://www.openmp.org/specifications/

- 5\.

  Python string formatting syntax

  https://docs.python.org/2/library/string.html#format-string-syntax

- 6\.

  the issue tracker

  https://github.com/jwilk/pdf2djvu/issues

- 7\.

  the mailing list

  https://groups.io/g/pdf2djvu