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pdftk — PDF toolkit. More information: <https://www.pdflabs.com/docs/pdftk-man-page/>.

Submitted by: @import:tldr-pages·Mar 2, 2026·

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Problem

How to use the pdftk command: PDF toolkit. More information: <https://www.pdflabs.com/docs/pdftk-man-page/>.

Solution

pdftk — PDF toolkit. More information: <https://www.pdflabs.com/docs/pdftk-man-page/>.

Extract pages 1-3, 5, and 6-10 from a PDF file and save them as another one:

pdftk {{path/to/input}}.pdf cat 1-3 5 6-10 output {{path/to/output}}.pdf

Merge (concatenate) a list of PDF files and save the result as another one:

pdftk {{path/to/file1}}.pdf {{path/to/file2}}.pdf cat output {{path/to/output}}.pdf

Split each page of a PDF file into a separate file, with a given filename output pattern:

pdftk {{path/to/input}}.pdf burst output {{path/to/out_%d}}.pdf

Rotate all pages by 180 degrees clockwise:

pdftk {{path/to/input}}.pdf cat 1-endsouth output {{path/to/output}}.pdf

Rotate third page by 90 degrees clockwise and leave others unchanged:

pdftk {{path/to/input}}.pdf cat 1-2 3east 4-end output {{path/to/output}}.pdf

Interleave two PDFs with one-sided scans of a two-sided document, where the backs were scanned back to front:

pdftk A={{path/to/fronts}}.pdf B={{path/to/backs}}.pdf shuffle A1-end Bend-1 output {{path/to/output}}.pdf

Code Snippets

Extract pages 1-3, 5, and 6-10 from a PDF file and save them as another one

pdftk {{path/to/input}}.pdf cat 1-3 5 6-10 output {{path/to/output}}.pdf

Merge (concatenate) a list of PDF files and save the result as another one

pdftk {{path/to/file1}}.pdf {{path/to/file2}}.pdf cat output {{path/to/output}}.pdf

Split each page of a PDF file into a separate file, with a given filename output pattern

pdftk {{path/to/input}}.pdf burst output {{path/to/out_%d}}.pdf

Rotate all pages by 180 degrees clockwise

pdftk {{path/to/input}}.pdf cat 1-endsouth output {{path/to/output}}.pdf

Rotate third page by 90 degrees clockwise and leave others unchanged

pdftk {{path/to/input}}.pdf cat 1-2 3east 4-end output {{path/to/output}}.pdf

Context

tldr-pages: common/pdftk

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