Rearrange PDF pages

t-right-to-left-2-up.sh

# Original PDF:
# 1. Front cover
# 2. content 1
# 3. content 2
# 4. ...
# 5. content -2
# 6. content -1
# 7. Back cover
#
# Resulting PDF:
# 1. Front cover
# 2. conent 2 + content 1    (right-to-left)
# 3. ...                     (right-to-left)
# 4. content -1 + content -2 (right-to-left)
# 5. Back cover

# Separate pages.
qpdf k-original.pdf --pages . 1 -- k-t-1.pdf
qpdf k-original.pdf --pages . 2-r2 -- k-t-2r2.pdf
qpdf k-original.pdf --pages . z -- k-t-z.pdf

# Convert content pages into right-to-left 2-up layout.
pdfpun k-t-2r2.pdf --outfile k-t-2r2-pun.pdf

# Join all pages.
#
# Note that all pages in an output file from pdfjam will have the same size and orientation.
# Therefore gs is used instead of pdfjam to join all pages.
gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=k-gs.pdf k-t-1.pdf k-t-2r2-pun.pdf k-t-z.pdf

t.sh

# Original PDF:
# 1. Front cover
# 2. content 1
# 3. content 2
# 4. ...
# 5. content -2
# 6. content -1
# 7. Back cover
#
# Resulting PDF:
# 1. Front cover
# 2. conent 1 + content 2
# 3. ...
# 4. content -2 + content -1
# 5. Back cover

n=164 # Number of pages in original.pdf

qpdf original.pdf --pages . 1 -- t-1.pdf
qpdf original.pdf --pages . 2-r2 -- t-2r2.pdf
qpdf original.pdf --pages . z -- t-z.pdf
pdfnup t-2r2.pdf
pdfjoin --fitpaper true --rotateoversize false t-2r2-nup.pdf t-z.pdf t-1.pdf
pdfjam --fitpaper true t-1-joined.pdf "$((n / 2 + 1))" t-1-joined.pdf "1-$(( n / 2 - 1 ))" t-1-joined.pdf "$(( n / 2 ))" --outfile t-x.pdf
# pdfjam t-x.pdf --fitpaper true --trim '0.83cm 0cm 0.835cm 0cm' --clip true --outfile t-x-trimmed.pdf