Coherent PDF Tools: PDF power at the CLI

Some of you aren’t going to like this next one. Here’s cpdf, from the demonstration version of the Coherent PDF tools.

I had to hesitate myself when I saw this wasn’t the “normal” Linux style of software — available as source code, GPL licensed, etc., etc.

But I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. And really, I think it does a pretty good job, for what I’ve seen.

Command-line PDF tools, aside from conversion utilities like archmage, seem scant. I’ve only used cpdf a few times, but it seems to have most of the PDF editing tools covered.

Among its tools, you can split, merge, rotate, encrypt, scale, compress, watermark, annotate, list fonts … and reverse most of those actions, plus more. It seems quite intuitive, with an in- and out-file flag system, page ranges, natural language cues for “even” or “odd” pages, and so forth.

Short of viewing a PDF file, this might be the answer to batch adjusting large groups of PDFs, or managing complex processing on one or two at a time.

As far as its license and redistribution … well, your conscience can be your guide. 😐

archmage: Prettifying chm files

File converters ride that fine line between console applications and tools, in my book.

They’re useful of course, and occasionally serve as important tools for other, larger programs.

But as applications … they’re a little slim.

archmage does a decent job recasting chm files as either pdf files or nicely arranged html documents. There’s nothing to see while archmage is at work; the final product looks like this, depending on how much graphical leeway you give it.

 

I mentioned pdf output, but to be honest, I didn’t see that from archmage. The option is there and it seems to work, but also needs htmldoc (?) and ran for an awful long time with no product.

If it works for you, let me know and I’ll try again.

Beyond that … there isn’t much archmage does. And since there’s not much of an interface to speak of, it’s pretty much a one-shot application.

On the other hand, it does a darned good job prettifying your chm files. 😐