Using ImageMagick to easily: Split, Merge, Remove a page from PDF.

pdf-conversion-fun.md

Install Required libraries:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install imagemagick gs

create directory to test commands

mkdir -p pdf_conversion/{merged,split}
cd pdf_conversion

download sample multi-page pdf to test with

curl -o LargeSample.pdf "http://cl.ly/0o1T453E153m/download/LargeSample.pdf"

Split a pdf into separate images

convert LargeSample.pdf split/page-%0d.jpg

Merge separate images into one full pdf.

convert split/*.jpg merged/full.pdf

Remove a page from a full pdf.

convert LargeSample.pdf split/page-%0d.jpg
rm split/page-2.jpg
convert split/*.jpg merged/full.pdf

With PHP: You can use PHP exec function to run these commands, ie:

<?php
exec('convert LargeSample.pdf split/page-%0d.jpg');

Links to read:

http://linuxcommando.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-to-merge-or-split-pdf-files-using.html http://linuxcommando.blogspot.com/2013/02/splitting-up-is-easy-for-pdf-file.html http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17025515/converting-a-multi-page-pdf-to-multiple-pages-using-a-single-command http://codetheory.in/convert-split-pdf-files-into-images-with-imagemagick-and-ghostscript/

You can test the above via OSX by install with brew:

brew update
brew install imagemagick gs

Awesome!

Thanks!

This method to remove pages from a PDF isn't exactly ideal since text loses significant clarify due to that it all becomes one big image instead of separately rendered elements. It's probably useful in some cases, but if you need clear text this won't cut it.

bad quality! not lossless

better solutions: pdftk, pdfjam, qpdf, pdfjoin, pdfshuffler, ghostscript, pdfseparate, ...

• https://superuser.com/questions/1197872/split-pdf-separate-some-pages-without-losing-quality-in-linux-terminal
• https://superuser.com/questions/345086/split-pdf-document-from-command-line-in-linux
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/221962/how-can-i-extract-a-page-range-a-part-of-a-pdf
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2507766/merge-convert-multiple-pdf-files-into-one-pdf