burst

Split a single PDF into multiple files

Usage

pdftl <input> burst [split_spec...] [output <template>]

Details

The burst operation splits a single input PDF into multiple single-page PDF files, or into multiple files containing consecutive runs of pages with given split points, or split points based on bookmarks and/or a file size limit.

An optional output template can be provided.

split_spec is an optional page specification, giving the ‘split points’, i.e.,, the initial page of each split chunk. The list of split points will be sorted and deduplicated before it is used, so order is irrelevant here. If omitted, burst defaults to splitting into single pages (equivalent to split_spec being 1-end).

You can also use level<n> as a split_spec, where <n> is a positive integer, to choose all bookmarks (a.k.a. outlines) at level up to n as split points. Similarly, level<n>only splits using only bookmarks at level <n>.

What is a bookmark level? The highest level of the bookmark hierarchy is level 1, and this is the level of the root of the bookmark tree and its siblings. Children of these bookmark items have level 2, and so on.

You can also specify size<limit> as one split_spec to burst the PDF into chunks that do not exceed a given file size, at least approximately, where possible. The file size limit can be specified in bytes, kilobytes (K/KB), or megabytes (M/MB). For example, size5M or size500K. Size bursting can be combined with standard split points, in which case chunks may be sub-divided to fit into the given size limit.

Examples

Burst a file into page_1.pdf, page_2.pdf, etc.

pdftl my.pdf burst

Burst a file into single-page files out0001.pdf, out0002.pdf, etc.

pdftl my.pdf burst output out%04d.pdf

Burst a file into files with split points from the bookmarks at levels 1 and 2

pdftl my.pdf burst level2 output out%04d.pdf

Burst a file into files with split points from the bookmarks at level 2 only

pdftl my.pdf burst level2only output out%04d.pdf

Burst a file into chunks out0001.pdf with pages 1-3, out0002.pdf with pages 4-6, etc.

pdftl my.pdf burst step3 output out%04d.pdf

Burst a file into chunks that are approximately 5 Megabytes or smaller.

pdftl my.pdf burst size5M output chunk%02d.pdf

Burst a file into chunks with pages 1-3, 4-6, etc., subdividing as needed to make files of size at most 250kb

pdftl my.pdf burst step3 size250kb output out%04d.pdf

Tags: from_scratch

Source: pdftl.operations.burst

Read online: https://pdftl.readthedocs.io/en/stable/operations/burst.html

Type: Operation