Crop PDF figures with Latex (Macos, Linux)

multipagepdfcrop

#!/bin/bash

# This extracts one page out of a multi-page PDF
# (such as the type exported from Powerpoint).
# Then it crops it to tight margins

# Suppose you have a powerpoint with some pages being paper figures
#   and a LaTex project that references pdf figures by name
# Old workflow
#   Export, open multi-page PDF, manually drag a crop box, copy, make new PDF, save that as a new file, change its name, click "yes, replace"
# New workflow
#   1. In Powerpoint, make some edits
#   2. In Powerpoint, export as PDF
#   3. In Terminal, run "multipagepdfcrop" with correct page and figure name
#   4. In LaTeX, recompile. The figure has updated.
#
# Usage: multipagepdfcrop infile page_number [outfile]
#
# Arguments:
#    infile
#    page number (1-indexed)
#    outfile (optional): default is <infile>-<page>.pdf

# Author: Alex Tait (atait@ieee.org)
# Date: 9/18/2017

# Option/argument handling
if [ $1 = "-h" ]; then
  echo "$0: extracts and tight crops one page of a multi-page PDF"
  echo "Usage: $0 infile page [outfile[.pdf]]"
  echo "Page number is 1-indexed"
  exit
fi
if [ $# -ne 2 ] && [ $# -ne 3 ]; then
  echo "Wrong number of arguments, must be 2 or 3"
  exit
fi
INFILE=$1
PAGE=$2
if [ $# -eq 3 ]; then
  OUTFILE=$3
else
  # Get the input file without a possible .pdf suffix
  # Then create the new output filename
  inFileLength=${#INFILE}
  if [ ${INFILE:inFileLength - 4} == ".pdf" ]; then
    INFILEROOT=${INFILE:0:inFileLength - 4}
  else
    INFILEROOT=$INFILE
  fi
  OUTFILE="$INFILEROOT-$PAGE.pdf"
fi
# Ensure outfile ends with .pdf
inFileLength=${#OUTFILE}
if [ ${OUTFILE:outFileLength - 4} != ".pdf" ]; then
  OUTFILE="$OUTFILE.pdf"
fi

# Extract single page
gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dFirstPage=$PAGE -dLastPage=$PAGE -sOUTPUTFILE=$OUTFILE $INFILE
# Crop tight
pdfcrop $OUTFILE $OUTFILE > /dev/null

@atait I use this very very often. Putting it here for posterity.