PDF Tools

A comprehensive command-line utility for downloading, merging, and compressing PDF files.

Features

• Download: Scrape PDF files from any webpage
• Merge: Combine PDF files into a specified number of evenly-sized output files
• Compress: Reduce PDF file sizes using various quality settings
• Aggressive Compression: Special handling for large files (>100MB)
• All-in-one: Run the full workflow from download to compression in a single command

Installation

1. Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/pdf-tools.git
   cd pdf-tools
   

2. Install the required dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

Usage

Download PDFs from a URL

python pdf_tools.py download <URL> [options]

Options:

• --output, -o: Output directory for downloaded PDFs (default: auto-generated based on URL)
• --workers, -w: Number of parallel download workers (default: 10)

Example:

python pdf_tools.py download https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/release --output JFK_PDFs

Merge PDFs into evenly-sized files

python pdf_tools.py merge [options]

Options:

• --input, -i: Input directory containing PDFs (default: most recent download directory)
• --output, -o: Output directory for merged PDFs (default: Merged_PDFs)
• --count, -c: Number of output files to create (default: 250)

Example:

python pdf_tools.py merge --input JFK_PDFs --output Merged_JFK_PDFs --count 100

Compress PDFs to reduce file size

python pdf_tools.py compress [options]

Options:

• --input, -i: Input directory containing PDFs
• --output, -o: Output directory for compressed PDFs (default: Compressed_PDFs)
• --quality, -q: Compression quality - screen, ebook, printer, prepress (default: screen)
• --workers, -w: Number of parallel compression workers (default: 4)

Example:

python pdf_tools.py compress --input Merged_JFK_PDFs --quality ebook

Run the full workflow (download, merge, compress)

python pdf_tools.py all <URL> [options]

Options:

• --output, -o: Final output directory (default: Processed_PDFs)
• --count, -c: Number of merged files to create (default: 250)
• --quality, -q: Compression quality (default: screen)
• --download-workers, -dw: Number of download workers (default: 10)
• --compress-workers, -cw: Number of compression workers (default: auto)

Example:

python pdf_tools.py all https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/release --output JFK_Final --count 100

Compression Quality Settings

• screen: Lowest quality, smallest file size (72 dpi)
• ebook: Medium quality, good file size (150 dpi)
• printer: Better quality, larger file size (300 dpi)
• prepress: Best quality, largest file size (300 dpi with additional features)

Requirements

• Python 3.6+
• PyPDF2
• Requests
• BeautifulSoup4
• Ghostscript (must be installed on your system)

License

MIT