QPDF: A Content-Preserving PDF Transformation System | Hacker News Reader

QPDF: A Content-Preserving PDF Transformation System

qpdf.sourceforge.net

53 pointsghosh10 comments

QPDF is great! I use it heavily to analyze PDFs generated from other applications (PDFTeX, InDesign) to incorporate new features (such as spot colors) in my software (http://speedata.github.io/publisher/index.html) The command line I prefer is

    qpdf --qdf --object-streams=disable in.pdf out.pdf

so I can view the result with less or a text editor.

I use mupdf-tools' pdfclean command for that.

   pdfclean -d in.pdf out.pdf

However qpdf seems to have more features. The most interesting for me:

The QPDF library also makes it possible for you to create PDF files from scratch. In this mode, you are responsible for supplying all the contents of the file, while the QPDF library takes care off all the syntactical representation of the objects, creation of cross references tables and, if you use them, object streams, encryption, linearization, and other syntactic details.

If it's so great, why does it live on Sourceforge? Every time I see a link there I die a little inside.

Very limited audience? No marketing effort?

Destined to die in obscurity? Check.

So, a very heavy overlap with pdftk then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdftk

pdftk was removed from Fedora linux because of itext5 license issues (https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2014-March/1...).

isn't itext released under the terms of the AGPL? While one may like or dislike the license, it should be considered OpenSource!?!

If you follow the thread, this message is linked:

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/legal/2011-June/00...

Which explains some more.

A key part to take from the conversation: "I also know from working with Tom Callaway that the theoretical solution of using the section 7 permission to remove additional restrictions is not one that Fedora generally wishes to use, perhaps as a matter of policy. I would add that, speaking for Red Hat as distributor, we do not wish to use that permission in this instance."

Ie: There is additional restrictions added to the AGPLv3 license in this specific case. The license allow fedora to remove them, but Fedora chooses not to do so.

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