wok view qpdf/description.txt @ rev 25503
f3: include extra programs
| author | Hans-G?nter Theisgen |
|---|---|
| date | Fri Jan 27 10:37:43 2023 +0100 (15 months ago) |
| parents | c861748f2be2 |
| children |
line source
1 QPDF is a command-line program that does structural, content-preserving
2 transformations on PDF files.
3 It could have been called something like pdf-to-pdf.
4 It also provides many useful capabilities to developers of PDF-producing
5 software or for people who just want to look at the innards of a PDF
6 file to learn more about how they work.
8 QPDF is capable of creating linearized (also known as web-optimized)
9 files and encrypted files.
10 It is also capable of converting PDF files with object streams (also
11 known as compressed objects) to files with no compressed objects or to
12 generate object streams from files that don't have them (or even those
13 that already do).
14 QPDF also supports a special mode designed to allow you to edit the
15 content of PDF files in a text editor.
17 QPDF includes support for merging and splitting PDFs through the ability
18 to copy objects from one PDF file into another and to manipulate the list
19 of pages in a PDF file.
20 The QPDF library also makes it possible for you to create PDF files from
21 scratch. In this mode, you are responsible for supplying all the contents
22 of the file, while the QPDF library takes care off all the syntactical
23 representation of the objects, creation of cross references tables and,
24 if you use them, object streams, encryption, linearization, and other
25 syntactic details.
27 QPDF is not a PDF content creation library, a PDF viewer, or a program
28 capable of converting PDF into other formats. In particular, QPDF knows
29 nothing about the semantics of PDF content streams.
30 If you are looking for something that can do that, you should look
31 elsewhere.
32 However, once you have a valid PDF file, QPDF can be used to transform
33 that file in ways perhaps your original PDF creation can't handle.
34 For example, programs generate simple PDF files but can't
35 password-protect them, web-optimize them, or perform other
36 transformations of that type.