[SOLVED] PDF document stitch / merge side by side?

penguin · 2014-12-03 13:42:58

Does anybody know of a way (preferably command line) to stitch two pdfs side by side?

The closest I can get is

pdftk in1.pdf multibackground in2.pdf output out.pdf

but that puts them on top of each other. That could work if I could insert room for them by having white space on opposite side of each pdf, and then merge them.

Last edited by penguin (2014-12-04 12:53:23)

Trilby · 2014-12-03 13:55:44

Do you want them stretch (compressed) to fit the same size in the end, or do you want the page width to double?

edit: I don't actually know any tool to do this off the top of my head, but clarifying the above might help pinpoint exactly what is needed.

penguin · 2014-12-03 14:52:17

So this is impossible to seach the Internet for, since either you find the "usual" way people want to merge files, or you find people wanting to add stamps or signatures or "do not distribute" text on top of a pdf.

However, I think I have found the building blocks I need. With the command in my first post, and

convert -extent <wd> x <ht>

option of imagemagick, I think I can get there.

I'll post again my complete solution, since this needs to be put in text.
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/comma … php#extent

penguin · 2014-12-04 12:52:09

So I think I solved it fairly OK. I post the script to do it here, although it might need some tweaking since it assumes the following:

1. there are two files, both eps that should be stitched.
2. file1 should be to the left of file2
3. file1 has the width of both (original)file1+file2. (In gnuplot I doubled the width of file1 manually, and made it a multiplot with 2 columns, the second column being empty, where I will place file2)

The script works for me, but I'm going to do some more non-general stuff to it, so I post it here while it still might be of use to others.

#!/bin/bash

FILE1_PATH[0]="fig_file1.eps"
FILE2_PATH[0]="fig_file2.eps"

for i in `seq 0 1`;
do
    INPUT_FILE1=${FILE1_PATH[$i]}
    INPUT_FILE2=${FILE2_PATH[$i]}

    # Read in dimensions (bounding box) of fig1
    WIDTH1=$(awk '$1 ~ /%BoundingBox:/{print $4-$2}' $INPUT_FILE1)
    HEIGHT1=$(awk '$1 ~ /%BoundingBox:/{print $5-$3}' $INPUT_FILE1)

    # Read in dimensions of (bounding box) fig2
    WIDTH2=$(awk '$1 ~ /%BoundingBox:/{print $4-$2}' $INPUT_FILE2)
    HEIGHT2=$(awk '$1 ~ /%BoundingBox:/{print $5-$3}' $INPUT_FILE2)
    BOUNDINGBOX_CMD=$(awk '$1 ~ /%BoundingBox:/{print $1}' $INPUT_FILE2)

    # Set bounding box of fig2 to same as fig1, making fig2 twice as wide (with white "canvas")
    sed -i 's/.*%BoundingBox:.*/'"$BOUNDINGBOX_CMD 0 0 $WIDTH1 $HEIGHT1"'/g' $INPUT_FILE2

    # Scale fig2 accordingly, to make the height of fig2 same as fig1
    # (thus when stitching them side by side, they have the same height)
    SCALE=$(echo "scale=20; $HEIGHT1/$HEIGHT2" | bc)
    sed -i '/%%EndComments/a '"$SCALE $SCALE scale"'' $INPUT_FILE2

    # Translate fig2 to right place on new big canvas
    TRANSLATE_X=$(echo "scale=20; $WIDTH1/2.0" | bc)
    sed -i '/%%EndComments/a '"$TRANSLATE_X 0 translate"'' $INPUT_FILE2

    # convert eps to pdf, since that is what pdftk likes
    epstopdf $INPUT_FILE1
    epstopdf $INPUT_FILE2

    # MERGE that sucker!
    pdftk ${INPUT_FILE1%.*}".pdf" background ${INPUT_FILE2%.*}".pdf" output out"$i".pdf
done

Last edited by penguin (2014-12-04 12:52:57)

meiower · 2025-08-14 04:56:30

(( an old post, but ranked highly in search for "arch pdf combine side-by-side" ))

Contemporary solution using cpdf (AUR)::

>  cpdf -merge -collate A.pdf B.pdf AND -impose-xy "2 1" -o out.pdf

Merges two documents together, such that each page from A.pdf is placed side-by-side with each page from B.pdf; the output document has the same page-count as the original pdfs.

schard · 2025-08-14 06:48:32

Mod note:

Please refrain from necro-bumping: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Genera … bumping%22

Closing this old thread.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-12-03 13:42:58

[SOLVED] PDF document stitch / merge side by side?

#2 2014-12-03 13:55:44

Re: [SOLVED] PDF document stitch / merge side by side?

#3 2014-12-03 14:52:17

Re: [SOLVED] PDF document stitch / merge side by side?

#4 2014-12-04 12:52:09

Re: [SOLVED] PDF document stitch / merge side by side?

#5 2025-08-14 04:56:30

Re: [SOLVED] PDF document stitch / merge side by side?

#6 2025-08-14 06:48:32

Re: [SOLVED] PDF document stitch / merge side by side?

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