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Youssef Adly
Youssef Adly

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pdftk is GOAT

#pdf #opensource

I am not aware of FOSS pdf editor for Linux (I really need one), and I had free subscription for Foxit Editor, sso I used to boot Windows just to edit PDF bookmarks (my dumb uni can't seem to add them), even though I daily-drive Linux.

I did a quick search, and I found pdftk, an absolute masterpiece

  1. Dump PDF metadata out 
# input the pdf
pdftk random.pdf dump_data_utf8 output output.txt
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  1. Edit them

in output.txt grep for BookmarkBegin and start editing, if it is missing just append it at the end of the pdf (one block per bookmark)

BookmarkBegin
BookmarkTitle: Bookmark Title
BookmarkLevel: 1
BookmarkPageNumber: 1
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save your file

  1. apply the new metadata 
pdftk random.pdf update_info_utf8 output.txt output output.pdf
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this so much more faster than old workflow tbh

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