pdfbook2(1) · carta

Usage

pdfbook2 [options] INPUT [INPUT, ...]

Overview

Create print-ready PDF files from some INPUT PDF files for booklet printing. The resulting files need to be printed in landscape/long edge double sided printing. The default paper format depends on the locale and is choosen by pdfjam. It can be set with the --paper option.

Before the pdf is composed the INPUT file is cropped to the relevant area in order to discard unnecessary white spaces. In this process, all pages are cropped to the same dimensions. Extra margins can be defined at the edges of the booklet and in the middle where the binding occurs.

The OUTPUT is written to INPUT-book.pdf. Existing files will be overwritten. All input files are processed seperatly.

Examples

To simply create a booklet from input.pdf you can use

pdfbook2 input.pdf

to create input-book.pdf. To select a special type of paper you can do

pdfbook2 --paper=letter input.pdf

for letter or

pdfbook2 --paper=a4paper input.pdf

for standard A4. To increase the inner margin for binding use

pdfbook2 --inner-margin=200 input.pdf

to increase the default value of 150. You can submit multiple files to the script for processing like

pdfbook2 input1.pdf input2.pdf

which will result in input1-book.pdf and input2-book.pdf.

Options

--version: show program's version number and exit

-h, --help: show help message and exit

General

-p, --paper=STR: Format of the output paper dimensions as latex keyword (e.g. a4paper, letterpaper, legalpaper, ...)

-s, --short-edge: Format the booklet for short-edge double-sided printing

-n, --no-crop: Prevent the cropping to the content area

Margins

-o, --outer-margin=INT: Defines the outer margin in the booklet (default: 40)

-i, --inner-margin=INT: Defines the inner margin between the pages in the booklet (default: 150)

-t, --top-margin=INT: Defines the top margin in the booklet (default: 30)

-b, --bottom-margin=INT: Defines the bottom margin in the booklet (default: 30)

Advanced

--signature=INT: Define the signature for the booklet handed to pdfjam, needs to be multiple of 4 (default: 4)

--signature*=INT: Same as --signature

--resolution=INT: Resolution used by ghostscript in bp (default: 72)

About

pdfbook2 v1.4 (https://github.com/jenom/pdfbook2)
(c) 2015 - 2020 Johannes Neumann (http://www.neumannjo.de)
licensed under GPLv3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0)
based on pdfbook by David Firth with help from Marco Pessotto

History

Arch Linux 2026-11-01 to Debian 11 (Bullseye): the text shown here
Debian 10 (Buster) to Debian 9 (Stretch)