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1 QPDF is a command-line program that does structural, content-preserving
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2 transformations on PDF files.
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3 It could have been called something like pdf-to-pdf.
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4 It also provides many useful capabilities to developers of PDF-producing
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5 software or for people who just want to look at the innards of a PDF
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6 file to learn more about how they work.
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7
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8 QPDF is capable of creating linearized (also known as web-optimized)
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9 files and encrypted files.
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10 It is also capable of converting PDF files with object streams (also
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11 known as compressed objects) to files with no compressed objects or to
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12 generate object streams from files that don't have them (or even those
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13 that already do).
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14 QPDF also supports a special mode designed to allow you to edit the
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15 content of PDF files in a text editor.
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16
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17 QPDF includes support for merging and splitting PDFs through the ability
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18 to copy objects from one PDF file into another and to manipulate the list
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19 of pages in a PDF file.
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20 The QPDF library also makes it possible for you to create PDF files from
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21 scratch. In this mode, you are responsible for supplying all the contents
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22 of the file, while the QPDF library takes care off all the syntactical
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23 representation of the objects, creation of cross references tables and,
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24 if you use them, object streams, encryption, linearization, and other
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25 syntactic details.
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26
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27 QPDF is not a PDF content creation library, a PDF viewer, or a program
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28 capable of converting PDF into other formats. In particular, QPDF knows
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29 nothing about the semantics of PDF content streams.
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30 If you are looking for something that can do that, you should look
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31 elsewhere.
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32 However, once you have a valid PDF file, QPDF can be used to transform
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33 that file in ways perhaps your original PDF creation can't handle.
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34 For example, programs generate simple PDF files but can't
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35 password-protect them, web-optimize them, or perform other
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36 transformations of that type. |