Convert PDF 2 sides per page to 1 side per page
OK, the problem was already solved with the help of Acrobat (full version, not Reader). But what to do if you don't have access to Acrobat? Could this be done with Ghostscript and pdftk as well?
How to solve this with the help of Ghostscript...
...and for the fun of it, let's not use an input file with "double-up" pages, but one with "treble-up". Actually, I received one such PDF today by email. It was a flyer, folded in Leporello's Scheme. The sheet size was A4 landscape (842pt x 595pt), and it was folded and layed-out like this:
Front side to be printed, page 1 of PDF
+--------+--------+--------+ ^
| | | | |
| 5 | 6 | 1 | |
| | | | 595 pt
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
+--------+--------+--------+ v
^ ^
fold fold
v v
+--------+--------+--------+ ^
| | | | |
| 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| | | | 595 pt
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
+--------+--------+--------+ v
Back side to be printed, page 2 of PDF
<---------- 842 pt -------->
I want to create 1 PDF with 6 pages, each of which has the unusual size of 280.67pt x 595 pt.
First Step
Let's first extract the left sections from each of the input pages:
gswin32c.exe ^
-o left-sections.pdf ^
-sDEVICE=pdfwrite ^
-g2807x5950 ^
-c "<</PageOffset [0 0]>> setpagedevice" ^
-f myflyer.pdf
What did these parameters do?
-o ...............:Names output file. Implicitely also uses-dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dSAFER.-sDEVICE=pdfwrite :we want PDF as output format.-g................:sets output media size in pixels. pdfwrite's default resolution is 720 dpi. Hence multiply by 10 to get a match for PageOffset.-c "..............:asks Ghostscript to process the given PostScript code snippet just before the main input file (which needs to follow with-f).<</PageOffset ....:sets shifting of page image on the medium. (Of course, for left pages the shift by[0 0]has no real effect.)-f ...............:process this input file.
Which result did the last command achieve?
This one:
Output file: left-sections.pdf, page 1
+--------+ ^
| | |
| 5 | |
| |595 pt
| | |
| | |
| | |
+--------+ v
Output file: left-sections.pdf, page 2
+--------+ ^
| | |
| 2 | |
| |595 pt
| | |
| | |
| | |
+--------+ v
< 280 pt >
Second Step
Now let's do the analogous thing for the center sections:
gswin32c.exe ^
-o center-sections.pdf ^
-sDEVICE=pdfwrite ^
-g2807x5950 ^
-c "<</PageOffset [280.67 0]>> setpagedevice" ^
-f myflyer.pdf
Result:
Output file: center-sections.pdf, page 1
+--------+ ^
| | |
| 6 | |
| |595 pt
| | |
| | |
| | |
+--------+ v
Output file: center-sections.pdf, page 2
+--------+ ^
| | |
| 3 | |
| |595 pt
| | |
| | |
| | |
+--------+ v
< 280 pt >
Third Step
Last, the right sections:
gswin32c.exe ^
-o right-sections.pdf ^
-sDEVICE=pdfwrite ^
-g2807x5950 ^
-c "<</PageOffset [561.34 0]>> setpagedevice" ^
-f myflyer.pdf
Result:
Output file: right-sections.pdf, page 1
+--------+ ^
| | |
| 1 | |
| |595 pt
| | |
| | |
| | |
+--------+ v
Output file: right-sections.pdf, page 2
+--------+ ^
| | |
| 4 | |
| |595 pt
| | |
| | |
| | |
+--------+ v
< 280 pt >
Last Step
Now we combine the pages into one file:
pdftk.exe ^
A=right-sections.pdf ^
B=center-sections.pdf ^
C=left-sections.pdf ^
cat A1 B2 C2 A2 B1 C1 ^
output single-files-input.pdf
verbose
Done. Here is the desired result. 6 different pages, sized 280.67x595.
Result:
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ ^
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
| 1 | | 2 | | 3 | | 4 | | 5 | | 6 | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | 595 pt
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+ v
< 280 pt > < 280 pt > < 280 pt > < 280 pt > < 280 pt > < 280 pt >
Just had the same problem. I stumbled upon briss, an open source java GUI tool for separating and cropping pdf pages:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/briss/
It worked very well for me, on Linux, even though the user interface isn't completely trivial. It even worked with a pdf with some differently sized pages!
@peims, thanks. Here's the step-by-step version of your method. I tried it on a file I wanted to convert for my Kindle DX, and it works perfectly:
- Use the full version of Acrobat v9 to crop the left hand side of the page, and save it as "left.pdf":
- Use the crop tool to mark the left hand side of the page.
- Right click, and select "Set Cropbox".
- Select "Document..Crop Pages", and apply the crop to the whole document.
- Repeat with the right hand pages, save as "right.pdf".
- At this stage, you have two documents: "left.pdf" with the left hand pages, and "right.pdf" with the right hand pages.
Next, use pdftk.exe (from http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/) to interleave the results into a single file. Copy "pdftk.exe", "left.pdf" and "right.pdf" to to "D:\", and execute:
- D:>pdftk D:\left.pdf burst output %05d_A.pdf
- D:>pdftk D:\right.pdf burst output %05d_B.pdf
- D:>pdftk *_?.pdf cat output combined.pdf
Note: if you copy the files to "C:\", it won't work under Win 7 due to security permissions. If you don't have a D:\, then create a directory "C:\x" to complete the operation.
These results would normally be good enough. However, there's two more optional steps to improve the output.
- (optional final step 1) At this stage, the document is huge (my doc ballooned from 7MB to 80MB), so you can reduce the file size by using either:
- "Advanced..PDF Optimizer", or:
- "Advanced..Preflight" with the "Compatible with Acrobat 5" setting.
- (optional final step 2) The pages are all different sizes. Repeat the crop on all pages, so everything is a uniform size.