man(1) pdfxup man page man(1)
NAME
pdfxup - n-up tool with reduced margins
SYNOPSIS
pdfxup [OPTIONS] [FILE]
DESCRIPTION
pdfxup creates a PDF document where each page is obtained by combining
several pages of a PDF file given as output. The important feature of
pdfxup, compared to similar programs, is that it tries to compute the
(global) bounding box of the input PDF file, in order to remove the
margins and to keep the text only. Instead of having the font size
divided by 2 (for the case of 2-up output), in some case you may end up
with almost the same font size as in the original document (as is the
case for a default 'article' document produced by LaTeX).
pdfxup uses ghostscript for computing the maximal bounding box of (some
of) the pages of the document, and then uses pdflatex (with graphicx
package) in order to produce the new document.
OPTIONS
pdfxup accepts numerous options. The most important ones are:
-x m, --columns m
sets the number of columns of the output file (default 2);
-y n, --rows n
sets the number of lines of the output file (default 1);
-nup mxn, --nup mxn
sets the number of rows and columns of the output file (default
2x1);
-l (0|1), --landscape, --portrait
sets orientation of paper (of final document);
-cf file, --config file, --mode file
reads file (with extension .xup) and uses options defined in
that file (see below for details about .xup files). All options
are processed in the order the appear on the command-line, so
that it is possible to modify the options set in the
configuration file (and it is even possible to include several
configuration files, the later one overwriting the options set
by the previous ones). Files are looked-up using kpsewhich (if
available).
-b (le|se), --booklet (le|se)
configure for printing as a booklet. Value 'le' (which is the
default value when -b is used with no argument) means that two-
sided printing is in 'long-edge' mode (you turn from one page to
the next along the long edge of the paper). 'se' is the 'short-
edge' option.
-c, --clip, -nc, --no-clip
clip (or don't clip) pages to the computed bounding box. By
default, content is clipped, to avoid overlap between
neighbouring pages. With --no-clip, anything outside the
bounding box will be displayed.
-o file, --output file
name of output file.
-i ask before overwriting output file.
-ow overwrite output file without asking.
-ps s, --paper s
sets paper size (default a4). The name must be known by package
geometry (more precisely, "<s>paper" should be defined in that
package).
-fw d, --framewidth d
width of the frame around each page (default 0.4pt). Set to 0pt
to have no frame at all.
-tf [0|1], --tight-frame [0|1]
whether the frame should be tight around the page, leaving
horizontal white space outside the frame, or should be wide and
span the whole available width.
-im d, --innermargins d
inner margin between frame and page (default 5pt).
-m d, --margins d
margin of pages of the new document (default 5pt).
-is d, --intspaces d
space between different pages (default 1pt).
-p list, --pages list
only consider sublist of pages of input document. List is a
comma-separated list of pages or ranges pages of the form a-b; a
can be omitted to start from first page, and b can be omitted to
end at the last page. Therefore, "-p -" (which is the default)
includes all pages. Also allows modulo, so that "-p 0%2" would
include only even-numbered pages.
-bb list, --bb list
only consider sublist of pages of input document for computing
bounding box.
-nobb list, --no-bb list
omit list of pages of input document from computation of
bounding box.
-g, --get-bb
only compute (and output) bounding box. Will not produce any
output file.
-kbb, --keep-bb
do not compute bounding box, preserve current margins.
-s x y W H, --set-bb x y W H
set the bounding box to the given values. Values are in pt; the
first two elements correspond to the lower left corner, while
the last two represent the width and height of the part to be
displayed.
-w file, --watermark file
use file as background watermark. file can be any format
accepted by pdflatex (e.g. png or pdf). If file is a multipage
PDF file, page n of the watermark file is used with page n of
the input file, and the last page of the watermark file is
repeated if the input file has more pages.
-wp p, --watermark-period p
repeat the last p pages of the watermark file instead of only
the last one.
-d, --debug
debug mode: keep intermediary files.
-col, --column-mode, --vertical
fill in pages top-down first (instead of the default left-to-
right mode). By default, pages are inserted from left-to-right,
until the line is full; with this option, pages are inserted
from top to bottom, until the column is full. For instance:
--------- ---------
row-mode | 1 2 3 | column-mode | 1 4 7 |
| 4 5 6 | | 2 5 8 |
| 7 8 9 | | 3 6 9 |
--------- ---------
-row, --row-mode, --horizontal
fill in pages left to right.
-bal, --balance-last
balance last page: when using column mode, the pages are filled
in from top to bottom, and the last page is no exception. Still,
it may be prefered that the columns in the last page remains
"balanced", which is what this option achieves. Symmetrically,
in row mode, this option would balance the rows.
--------- ---------
row, no-balance | 1 2 3 | column, no-balance | 1 4 |
| 4 5 | | 2 5 |
| | | 3 |
--------- ---------
--------- ---------
row, balance | 1 2 | column, balance | 1 3 5 |
| 3 4 | | 2 4 |
| 5 | | |
--------- ---------
-V [0-3], --verbose [0-3]
select verbosity (default: 1).
-q, --quiet
run quietly (equiv. '-V 0').
-v, --version
print version number and exit.
-h, --help
print help message and exit.
CONFIGURATION FILES
Configuration files (extension .xup) are bash scripts used to set some
variables. If option "--config-file <file>" (or equivalent) is used,
<file> is looked up with kpsewhich first, if it contains no '/'. If
kpsewhich does not find it, then pdfxup checks if the file exists
(using 'test -e') before sourcing it (the PATH variable will not be
used to find it).
The script should only set some internal variables of pdfxup, such as
NB_ROWS, NB_COLUMNS, LANDSCAPE (to set up a predefined layout). It can
be used to set the bounding box, but it is often better to compute it
on the first few pages of the document. Here are some examples of
lines that can be put in a .xup file:
NB_COLUMNS=1
set the number of columns to 1
NB_ROWS=2
set the number of rows to 2
LANDSCAPE=0
set portrait mode
KEEP_ORIG_BBOX=1
do not crop margins
SET_BBOX="75 47 540 755"
set bounding box: lower left=(75,47); upper right=(540,755)
TIGHT_FRAME=1
set tight frames around pages
INNER_MARGINS=10pt
set margin around each page (inside the frame) to 10pt
INTERM_SPACES=10pt
set space between pages to 10pt
FRAME_WIDTH=2mm
set frame width to 2mm
Other available variables can be found in the setdefaultvalues
function.
EXAMPLES
# pdfxup file.pdf
produces 2-up pdf file from file.pdf.
# pdfxup -bb 1-4 file.pdf
same behaviour, but computes the bounding box only using the
first 4 pages (this saves time when processing long documents).
# pdfxup -b -o booklet.pdf file.pdf
same behaviour, but creates a booklet (as booklet.pdf).
# pdfxup -kbb -x1 -y2 -l0 beamer-frames.pdf
arranges 2 beamer frames per page (not reducing margins).
# pdfxup --mode beamer2 beamer-frames.pdf
arranges PDF pages according to beamer2.xup configuration file.
# pdfxup -kbb -x2 -y2 -l beamer-frames.pdf:1-12,15-19
arranges 4 beamer frames per page (not reducing margins),
including only frames 1 to 12 and 15 to 19.
SEE ALSO
gs(1), pdflatex(1)
AUTHOR
Nicolas Markey (pdfxup@markey.fr)
2.12 11 june 2024 man(1)
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