How to convert a 1 page PDF to a 2 page per sheet PDF?

linux pdf conversion

50,676

Solution 1

In addition to what's been mentioned, pdfjam-extras includes a command line tool, pdfnup which does this. (It makes use of the pdfpages package for PDFLaTeX underneath, which you can also use.)

If you prefer a GUI, jPDFtweak is another option.

Solution 2

Use pdfnup:

$ pdfnup file.pdf

This will create a new pdf file exactly like you asked for.

Solution 3

This is a question old enough to think that the options we have now were absent at the time, but maybe it deserves an up-to-date solution.

Linux pdf viewers usually use the printing options/properties to set the page layout, and there you can print multiple pages per sheet/side. The idea is to use those to print to file as PDF.

Evince can do it, also qpdfview. More here.

qpdfview

Evince

PDF Studio Viewer

Other pdf viewers must have similar options.

Solution 4

For anyone wanting to take a 1 or 2 pg pdf and turn it into a pdf with 2 copies of that side-by-side in landscape view (great for printing flyers), do:

First, install texlive-extra-utils, which contains pdfnup:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install texlive-extra-utils

Then:

Turn the 1 or 2 pg pdf input into an output which contains a duplicated copy of those pages (1-pg pdf --> 2-pg pdf, 2-pg pdf --> 4-pg pdf, etc):
```
pdfunite in.pdf in.pdf out.pdf
```
Combine that duplicated-copy pdf into a 2-pages-per-side-in-landscape-view pdf, for printing flyers for example:
```
pdfnup out.pdf
```

Or (recommended) do both steps above all on a single line:

pdfunite in.pdf in.pdf out.pdf && pdfnup out.pdf

Note that out.pdf is the input to pdfnup. The resulting output file from pdfnup will be called "out-nup.pdf".

Also, watch the output of the pdfnup command and you'll see the verbose form of the command it is actually running, which gives you some insight into the options you can pass into it. Apparently pdfnup uses pdfjam under the hood, as it indicates here:

  pdfjam: Effective call for this run of pdfjam:  
          /usr/bin/pdfjam --suffix nup --nup '2x1' --landscape -- out.pdf -

Example output:

Original PDF (1 regular pg in Portrait view), "in.pdf":

Final PDF (2 pgs side-by-side in Landscape view), "out-nup.pdf":

now can be cut in half down the middle to pass out as flyers

Simple Bash Function: `make_flyer`

New version: get an even better and more up-to-date version of the below script here: make_flyer.sh, from my eRCaGuy_dotfiles repo. Follow the installation instructions in the comments at the top of the file.

Old version:

Copy and paste this bash function to the bottom of your ~/.bashrc file in order to get access to a simple and easy-to-use command make flyer:

# Description: outputs a landscape-oriented flyer pdf
# ("my/pdf/input--flyer.pdf") for each 1 or more pg input pdf 
# ("my/pdf/input.pdf")
#   - 1-pg input PDFs are converted to a 1-sided landscape, printable flyer 
#     that you cut down the center to make 2 flyers.
#   - 2-pg input PDFs are converted to a 2-sided landscape, printable flyer 
#     (flip on short edge when printing double-sided), and also cut down the 
#     middle to make 2 flyers.
#   - **3+ pg input PDFs**: using `pdfnup` directly in this case would make 
#     more sense, since this function will otherwise unnecessarily create 2 
#     copies.
#   - 3 and 4-pg input PDFs are converted to a single piece of paper, 
#     double-sided, flipped on short edge, x 2 copies. No cutting is necessary.
#   - 5+ pg input PDFs simply require half as much paper to print is all since 
#     you get 2 pages per side of paper; they do NOT print like booklets, but 
#     rather just as a landscape-printed, flipped-on-short-edge bundle of pages
#     (like a deck of slides). You get *2 copies* per print though, so just 
#     print half of the total number of pages. 
#
# Example:
#       make_flyer "path/to/inputpdf1.pdf" "path/to/inputpdf2.pdf"
make_flyer() {
    num_args=$# # see: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4423306/how-do-i-find-the-number-of-arguments-passed-to-a-bash-script/4423321#4423321
    suffix="flyer"

    loop_cnt=0
    for inputpdf in "$@"
    do
        ((loop_cnt++))
        echo "==== CONVERTING PDF $loop_cnt OF $num_args ===="
        echo "     INPUT:  \"$inputpdf\""

        # Strip off the .pdf extension from the input path, while retaining the rest of the path
        # - See: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12152626/how-can-i-remove-the-extension-of-a-filename-in-a-shell-script/32584935#32584935
        input_path_base="$(echo "$inputpdf" | rev | cut -f 2- -d '.' | rev)"
        input_file_base="$(basename "$inputpdf" .pdf)"
        temp_pdf="${input_path_base}-.pdf" # is "input_path_base-.pdf"
        
        echo "     OUTPUT: \"$(pwd)/${input_file_base}--${suffix}.pdf\""

        # Convert a single 1-pg pdf into a temporary 2-pg pdf
        pdfunite "$inputpdf" "$inputpdf" "$temp_pdf"

        # Lay out the temporary 2-pg pdf into a side-by-side 1-sided flyer to print; creates "input_path_base--flyer.pdf"
        # Note that `pdfnup` places the output from this operation in the location from where you call this script
        # (ie: in your `pwd` [Present Working Directory])!--NOT the location where temp_pdf is located!
        pdfnup "$temp_pdf" --suffix $suffix

        # Delete the temporary 2-pg pdf, called "input_path_base-.pdf", thereby leaving only the original 
        # "input_path_base.pdf" and the new "input_path_base--flyer.pdf"
        rm "$temp_pdf"
    done
}
alias make_flyer_help='echo -e "Ex usage: make_flyer \"path/to/inputpdf.pdf\" - Creates a landscape-side-by-side flyer version called \"inputpdf--flyer.pdf\"\n          *in your pwd* from a 1 or 2 pg input pdf called \"path/to/inputpdf.pdf\". Accepts multiple arguments. Ex:\n          make_flyer \"path/to/inputpdf1.pdf\" \"path/to/inputpdf2.pdf\""'

Example usage:

make_flyer "path/to/inputpdf1.pdf" "path/to/inputpdf2.pdf"

See Help info:

make_flyer_help

Output:

$ make_flyer_help   
Ex usage: make_flyer "path/to/inputpdf.pdf" - Creates a landscape-side-by-side flyer version called "inputpdf--flyer.pdf"  
          *in your pwd* from a 1 or 2 pg input pdf called "path/to/inputpdf.pdf". Accepts multiple arguments. Ex:  
          make_flyer "path/to/inputpdf1.pdf" "path/to/inputpdf2.pdf"

References:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/214538/printing-in-booklet-format/1095789#1095789

Bash References:

Bash How to pass arguments into a bash function: https://bash.cyberciti.biz/guide/Pass_arguments_into_a_function
Bash Concatenate strings: https://linuxize.com/post/bash-concatenate-strings/
Bash execute a cmd stored as a string! https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2005192/how-to-execute-a-bash-command-stored-as-a-string-with-quotes-and-asterisk
Bash iterate over all inputs to a cmd: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/255898/how-to-iterate-over-arguments-in-a-bash-script/255913#255913
Bash passing parameters to function: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6212219/passing-parameters-to-a-bash-function/6212408#6212408
How to convert a 1-pg pdf into a flyer [my own ans!]: How to convert a 1 page PDF to a 2 page per sheet PDF?

Solution 5

There are freeware & open source command line tools available to convert PDFs to reader's spreads, booklet spreads etc.

I lost the app I was using, so no help there, but a from a quick search I see a program called pdfshuffler which might be what you need. Has a gui, so not likely to be automagical, but it is a front-end for python-pyPdf.

View more solutions

50,676

Ammy

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

Ammy almost 2 years
I would like to print a PDF so that on the front of the first page are the first two pages, on the back the 3rd and 4th and so on.
```
-----------------          -----------------
|       |       |          |       |       |
|       |       |          |       |       |
|   1   |   2   |          |   3   |   4   |    . . .
|       |       |          |       |       |
|_______|_______|          |_______|_______|

 page 1 - front             page 1 - back
```
Because my printer using Linux fails to support manual duplex printing I'd thought, maybe I could edit the pdf in a according way.

But how?
- Arvind Jha over 13 years
  
  I don't think that this is possible, do you only have the pdf?
- rems over 13 years
  
  This is possible on Linux using pstops from the psutils package and/or pdftk. Which operating system are you running?
- akira over 13 years
  
  @Ivo Flipse: har, i thought the exactly the same :) so, your comment gets a +1 as well.
- Kurt Pfeifle over 13 years
  
  @Ivo Flipse, @rems: You can upvote more ASCII art here: superuser.com/questions/54054/… and superuser.com/questions/235074/… ... @mokasin: these links may give you an idea how to solve the task you asked for.
- user12711 over 2 years
  
  I don't understand the end product desired: If you have 4 pdf pages and want to put that on one sheet of paper, front |1|2|-|3|4| rear with the fold between pdf pages 1 and 2, then the folded page ends up with page 2 on front, then pages 3 and 4 on the interior, and finally page 1 will be on the back. So, it seems the correct order would be |4|1|-|2|3| if you plan on folding the sheet, then reading page 1 first, then 2 and 3 in the interior, and finally page 4 on the rear. (the fold on the front between 4 and 1 folds page 4 to the rear, then pages 2 and 3 on the inside. Is that what you want?
Trevor Boyd Smith over 7 years

pdfnup shows the command line options used with pdfjam and so you can tweak from there. (ex: if you want to not have landscape. you can remove the --landscape option when calling pdfjam)
lolesque over 7 years

More exactly pdfnup --nup 2x1 --suffix test file.pdf will create a file-test.pdf with 2 pages in 1.
Sarke almost 6 years

sudo apt install texlive-extra-utils to install these utils on Ubuntu.
Gabriel Staples over 5 years

Sample usage: pdfnup --nup 2x1 mypdf.pdf. This prints 2 pages side-by-side per sheet on a landscape view, to be printed flipped over the short edge. See man pdfnup for a few more details.
Nordlöw over 5 years

I have a single page a4 I want to print in two copies of a5's per sheet. How do I accomplish this? The usage examples of 'pdfnup' above does not duplicate the first page, but instead makes the second a5-part of the first a4 sheet blank.
Gabriel Staples about 5 years

I've decided to add an answer too: how to convert 1 1-pg pdf into a landscape view with 2 copies of it duplicated on the same page (great for printing flyers): superuser.com/a/1452008/425838
jlh almost 4 years

@GabrielStaples Thanks for the sample usage! On Debian I had to install texlive-extra-utils to have this command.
mutableVoid almost 4 years

The utility script pdfnup has been removed from the distribution of pfdjam. It is possible to use pdfjam directly, e.g. via pdfjam --nup 2x1 in.pdf --outfile out.pdf --landscape
Shayan over 2 years

Is there any option to make it right to left?
Shayan over 2 years

Is there any option to make it right to left?