Provided by: texlive-extra-utils_2024.20250309-2_all 
NAME
pdfxup - n-up tool with reduced margins
SYNOPSIS
pdfxup [OPTIONS] [FILE]
DESCRIPTION
pdfxup creates a PDF document where each page is obtained by combining several pages of a PDF file given
as output. The important feature of pdfxup, compared to similar programs, is that it tries to compute the
(global) bounding box of the input PDF file, in order to remove the margins and to keep the text only.
Instead of having the font size divided by 2 (for the case of 2-up output), in some case you may end up
with almost the same font size as in the original document (as is the case for a default 'article'
document produced by LaTeX).
pdfxup uses ghostscript for computing the maximal bounding box of (some of) the pages of the document,
and then uses pdflatex (with graphicx package) in order to produce the new document.
OPTIONS
pdfxup accepts numerous options. The most important ones are:
-x m, --columns m
sets the number of columns of the output file (default 2);
-y n, --rows n
sets the number of lines of the output file (default 1);
-nup mxn, --nup mxn
sets the number of rows and columns of the output file (default 2x1);
-l (0|1), --landscape, --portrait
sets orientation of paper (of final document);
-cf file, --config file, --mode file
reads file (with extension .xup) and uses options defined in that file (see below for details
about .xup files). All options are processed in the order the appear on the command-line, so that
it is possible to modify the options set in the configuration file (and it is even possible to
include several configuration files, the later one overwriting the options set by the previous
ones). Files are looked-up using kpsewhich (if available).
-b (le|se), --booklet (le|se)
configure for printing as a booklet. Value 'le' (which is the default value when -b is used with
no argument) means that two-sided printing is in 'long-edge' mode (you turn from one page to the
next along the long edge of the paper). 'se' is the 'short-edge' option.
-c, --clip, -nc, --no-clip
clip (or don't clip) pages to the computed bounding box. By default, content is clipped, to avoid
overlap between neighbouring pages. With --no-clip, anything outside the bounding box will be
displayed.
-o file, --output file
name of output file.
-i ask before overwriting output file.
-ow overwrite output file without asking.
-ps s, --paper s
sets paper size (default a4). The name must be known by package geometry (more precisely,
"<s>paper" should be defined in that package).
-fw d, --framewidth d
width of the frame around each page (default 0.4pt). Set to 0pt to have no frame at all.
-tf [0|1], --tight-frame [0|1]
whether the frame should be tight around the page, leaving horizontal white space outside the
frame, or should be wide and span the whole available width.
-im d, --innermargins d
inner margin between frame and page (default 5pt).
-m d, --margins d
margin of pages of the new document (default 5pt).
-is d, --intspaces d
space between different pages (default 1pt).
-p list, --pages list
only consider sublist of pages of input document. List is a comma-separated list of pages or
ranges pages of the form a-b; a can be omitted to start from first page, and b can be omitted to
end at the last page. Therefore, "-p -" (which is the default) includes all pages. Also allows
modulo, so that "-p 0%2" would include only even-numbered pages.
-bb list, --bb list
only consider sublist of pages of input document for computing bounding box.
-nobb list, --no-bb list
omit list of pages of input document from computation of bounding box.
-g, --get-bb
only compute (and output) bounding box. Will not produce any output file.
-kbb, --keep-bb
do not compute bounding box, preserve current margins.
-s x y W H, --set-bb x y W H
set the bounding box to the given values. Values are in pt; the first two elements correspond to
the lower left corner, while the last two represent the width and height of the part to be
displayed.
-w file, --watermark file
use file as background watermark. file can be any format accepted by pdflatex (e.g. png or pdf).
If file is a multipage PDF file, page n of the watermark file is used with page n of the input
file, and the last page of the watermark file is repeated if the input file has more pages.
-wp p, --watermark-period p
repeat the last p pages of the watermark file instead of only the last one.
-d, --debug
debug mode: keep intermediary files.
-col, --column-mode, --vertical
fill in pages top-down first (instead of the default left-to-right mode). By default, pages are
inserted from left-to-right, until the line is full; with this option, pages are inserted from top
to bottom, until the column is full. For instance:
--------- ---------
row-mode | 1 2 3 | column-mode | 1 4 7 |
| 4 5 6 | | 2 5 8 |
| 7 8 9 | | 3 6 9 |
--------- ---------
-row, --row-mode, --horizontal
fill in pages left to right.
-bal, --balance-last
balance last page: when using column mode, the pages are filled in from top to bottom, and the
last page is no exception. Still, it may be prefered that the columns in the last page remains
"balanced", which is what this option achieves. Symmetrically, in row mode, this option would
balance the rows.
--------- ---------
row, no-balance | 1 2 3 | column, no-balance | 1 4 |
| 4 5 | | 2 5 |
| | | 3 |
--------- ---------
--------- ---------
row, balance | 1 2 | column, balance | 1 3 5 |
| 3 4 | | 2 4 |
| 5 | | |
--------- ---------
-V [0-3], --verbose [0-3]
select verbosity (default: 1).
-q, --quiet
run quietly (equiv. '-V 0').
-v, --version
print version number and exit.
-h, --help
print help message and exit.
CONFIGURATION FILES
Configuration files (extension .xup) are bash scripts used to set some variables. If option "--config-
file <file>" (or equivalent) is used, <file> is looked up with kpsewhich first, if it contains no '/'. If
kpsewhich does not find it, then pdfxup checks if the file exists (using 'test -e') before sourcing it
(the PATH variable will not be used to find it).
The script should only set some internal variables of pdfxup, such as NB_ROWS, NB_COLUMNS, LANDSCAPE (to
set up a predefined layout). It can be used to set the bounding box, but it is often better to compute it
on the first few pages of the document. Here are some examples of lines that can be put in a .xup file:
NB_COLUMNS=1
set the number of columns to 1
NB_ROWS=2
set the number of rows to 2
LANDSCAPE=0
set portrait mode
KEEP_ORIG_BBOX=1
do not crop margins
SET_BBOX="75 47 540 755"
set bounding box: lower left=(75,47); upper right=(540,755)
TIGHT_FRAME=1
set tight frames around pages
INNER_MARGINS=10pt
set margin around each page (inside the frame) to 10pt
INTERM_SPACES=10pt
set space between pages to 10pt
FRAME_WIDTH=2mm
set frame width to 2mm
Other available variables can be found in the setdefaultvalues function.
EXAMPLES
# pdfxup file.pdf
produces 2-up pdf file from file.pdf.
# pdfxup -bb 1-4 file.pdf
same behaviour, but computes the bounding box only using the first 4 pages (this saves time when
processing long documents).
# pdfxup -b -o booklet.pdf file.pdf
same behaviour, but creates a booklet (as booklet.pdf).
# pdfxup -kbb -x1 -y2 -l0 beamer-frames.pdf
arranges 2 beamer frames per page (not reducing margins).
# pdfxup --mode beamer2 beamer-frames.pdf
arranges PDF pages according to beamer2.xup configuration file.
# pdfxup -kbb -x2 -y2 -l beamer-frames.pdf:1-12,15-19
arranges 4 beamer frames per page (not reducing margins), including only frames 1 to 12 and 15 to
19.
SEE ALSO
gs(1), pdflatex(1)
AUTHOR
Nicolas Markey (pdfxup@markey.fr)
2.12 11 june 2024 man(1)