Merge PDFs / Arrange pdf pages

merge in order

pdfunite file1.pdf file2.pdf <...> output.pdf

(last filename should not exist. If you fail to provide it, the last pdf will be overwritten):

 

arrange pages:

sudo apt-get install libreoffice-pdfimport
libreoffice <file.pdf>

File menu -> export to PDF

(disadvantage: the resulting file is pretty big)

 

convert color pdf to greyscale:

gs \
 -sOutputFile=output.pdf \
 -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \
 -sColorConversionStrategy=Gray \
 -dProcessColorModel=/DeviceGray \
 -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 \
 -dAutoRotatePages=/None\
 -dNOPAUSE \
 -dBATCH \
 input.pdf

sources:

• https://superuser.com/questions/104656/convert-a-pdf-to-greyscale-on-the-command-line-in-floss
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/162037/how-to-edit-pdfs
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2507766/merge-convert-multiple-pdf-files-into-one-pdf

 

manipulating pdf files: pdftk (pdf toolkit):

• https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/
• https://www.linux.com/learn/manipulating-pdfs-pdf-toolkit

more: https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/PDF (german)