Frequently Asked Questions¶
How can I suppress these superfluous empty pages?
Short Answer: Specify the desired output size using the same page-name as the medium-size:
pdfposter -mA5 -p2xA5 in.pdf out.pdf
Long Answer: If you are running:
pdfposter -mA5 -pA4 in.pdf out.pdf
you most probably expect the result to be 2 A5-pages large, but you will get three pages, where the third seams to be empty. (If you have a full-colored background, you will find a small line on the third page.)
And this is what went wrong:
In the command above, you say: “The output should be A4 sized”, while you mean: “The output should fit on two A5 pages”.
Basically you are right, if you say “hey, this ought to be the same!”. It is a scaling or rounding issue caused by ISO page sizes not scaling exactly (even as they should, see ISO 216). For example since A4 is 297 mm high, A5 should be 148.5 mm wide, but is only 148 mm wide.
So the solution is to specify on the command-line what you want: “should fit on two A5 pages”:
pdfposter -mA5 -p2xA5 in.pdf out.pdf
Are there other Python tools for manipulating PDF?