A simple method to spit an open scanned pdf book to single page output.

gistfile1.txt

#!/usr/bin/env python
#-*- coding: UTF-8 -*-
# Copyright (c) 2010 by None
#
# GNU General Public Licence (GPL)
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
# the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
# Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
# version.
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
# ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
# FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more
# details.
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
# this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple
# Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
#
__author__ = '''Costas Tyfoxylos <costas.tyf@gmail.com>'''
__docformat__ = 'plaintext'
__date__ = '02/09/2010'

import sys
import os
from pyPdf import PdfFileWriter, PdfFileReader


def split_pages(filename):
    input_document = open(filename, 'rb')
    pdf_name = input_document.name
    pdf = PdfFileReader(input_document)
    out_pdf = PdfFileWriter()
    for index in range(pdf.numPages):
        page = pdf.getPage(index)
        width = page.mediaBox[2]
        height = page.mediaBox[3]
        if width > height:
            firstPdf = PdfFileReader(input_document)
            secondPdf = PdfFileReader(input_document)
            firstPage = firstPdf.getPage(index)
            secondPage = secondPdf.getPage(index)

            firstPage.cropBox.lowerLeft = (0, 0)
            firstPage.cropBox.upperRight = (width / 2 + 10, height)

            secondPage.cropBox.lowerLeft = (width / 2 - 10, 0)
            secondPage.cropBox.upperRight = (width, height)

            out_pdf.addPage(firstPage)
            out_pdf.addPage(secondPage)
        else:
            out_pdf.addPage(page)

    out_put_file = open("FullPage {filename}".format(filename=pdf_name), 'wb')
    out_pdf.write(out_put_file)
    out_put_file.close()