How to query pdf page size from the command line

pdf

For scripting I need to get the page dimensions of a PDF file (in mm).

pdfinfo just prints it in 'pts', e.g.:

Page size:      624 x 312 pts

What should I use?

Or what unit is 'pts' anyway – in case I want to convert them …

Best Answer

The 'pts' unit used by pdfinfo denotes a PostScript point. A PostScript point is defined in terms of an inch and a resolution of 72 dots per inch:

In the late 1980s to the 1990s, the traditional point was supplanted by the desktop publishing point (also called the PostScript point), which was defined as 72 points to the inch (1 point = 1⁄72 inches = 25.4⁄72 mm = 0.352¯7 mm [ ≙ 0.3528 mm] ).

The manual to gv contains a list of common paper formats specified in PostScript points.

Related Solutions

Convert a folder of images into a multi-page pdf file using command line tools

Requirements

ImageMagick

Type the follow line to commmand prompt for intall ImageMagick:

sudo apt-get install imagemagick

Convert from jpegs to PDF:

Go to the work directory (directory of jpegs):

cd work/directory/path

Convert the JPG files to PDF:

convert *.jpg foo.pdf

source : http://bitprison.net/jpg_to_pdf

Avoid bloating file size when removing OCRed text from a pdf file

If the original image are JPEG files, you could use pdfimages option -j. From man pdfimages:

-j     Normally, all images are written as PBM (for monochrome  images)
       or  PPM  (for  non-monochrome  images) files.  With this option,
       images in DCT format are  saved  as  JPEG  files.   All  non-DCT
       images are saved in PBM/PPM format as usual.

I am not sure how to control the way convert stores the images in the PDF file, but you can use -quality and -resize to alter the compression quality.

By calling convert in one of the following ways

TMPDIR=/home/tim/tmp  convert ...
MAGICK_TMPDIR=/home/tim/tmp convert ...

you can have convert use /home/tim/tmp as the temporary directory and circumvent the space problems. (Which probably has no influence on resulting file size).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Convert a folder of images into a multi-page pdf file using command line tools

Avoid bloating file size when removing OCRed text from a pdf file

Related Question