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@jacobsalmela
Last active November 21, 2020 22:44
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Merge PDFs using Python
#!/usr/bin/env python
# Jacob Salmela
# Make PyPDF2 is installed: sudo easy_install PyPDF2
# https://jacobsalmela.com/2016/08/12/merge-pdfs-natively-with-a-right-click-in-os-x/
import sys
import os
from PyPDF2 import PdfFileMerger, PdfFileReader
merger = PdfFileMerger()
# Get the folder of the first file and that's where the merged PDF will go
dirname = os.path.dirname(sys.argv[1])
for f in sys.argv[1:]:
filename = os.path.basename(f)
print("Appending " + filename + "...")
# Append each page to the merger
merger.append(PdfFileReader(file(f, 'rb')))
# Close the file to prevent duplicate pages from being appended
file(f).close()
# Write all the appends to a new file
merger.write(os.path.join(dirname, "merged.pdf"))
@nickv2002
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`file(f).close() was causing a crash so I took it out in my version. I also made some modifications to improve path handling:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# coding=utf-8

# Jacob Palmela
# Make PyPDF2 is installed: sudo easy_install PyPDF2
# Automator action: http://jacobsalmela.com/merge-pdfs-natively-with-a-right-click-in-os-x/
import sys, os
from PyPDF2 import PdfFileMerger, PdfFileReader

merger = PdfFileMerger()

# Get the folder of the first file and that's where the merged PDF will go
dirname = os.path.dirname(sys.argv[1])

for f in sys.argv[1:]:
    filename = os.path.basename(f)
    print("Appending " + filename + "…")

    # Append each page to the merger
    merger.append(PdfFileReader(file(f, 'rb')))

# Write all the appends to a new file
merger.write(os.path.join(dirname, "merged.pdf"))

@felix822
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Did you guys ever figure out the problem with pages being doubled up if original PDFs have more than one page? I'm combining 1 & 3 pages, and getting 8 total in merged.pdf

@znuc89
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znuc89 commented Mar 14, 2017

-: line 3: import: command not found
-: line 4: import: command not found
from: can't read /var/mail/PyPDF2
-: -c: line 7: syntax error near unexpected token (' -: -c: line 7: merger = PdfFileMerger()'

How to fix it?

@DeFilippis
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I'm getting an Import Error with PyPDF2, which I suspect is likely due to me having Python3 installed. Anybody know how to fix this? The usual methods did not work. (tried pip install, pip3 install, conda install, brew install)

@jacobsalmela
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Hmm, it's been so long since I even wrote this...

@Lovepankie
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The code runs but i cant seem to find the location of my merged pdf. Can someone here help me please?

@jacobsalmela
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jacobsalmela commented May 23, 2020

If you remove the get selected finder items from the workflow, those duplicates don't happen anymore. I updated my blog post to reflect that.

@Lovepankie
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Thank you @jacobsalmela. I finally figured it out and then created a GUI version from your code. Thank you so much

@jacobsalmela
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NP. Glad it's still useful. I've been going through some of my old posts to fixup stuff like this.

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