pystitcher stitches your PDF files together, generating nice customizable bookmarks for you using a declarative input in the form of a markdown file. It is written in pure python and uses PyPDF3 for reading and writing PDF files.
You can install it easily using pipx:
pipx install pystitcherThe Wiki has Alternative Installation Instructions.
pystitcher is a command line tool, with very few cli options:
usage: pystitcher [-h] [--version] [-v] [--cleanup | --no-cleanup] spine.md output.pdf
Stitch PDF files together
positional arguments:
spine.md Input markdown file
output.pdf Output PDF file
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--version show program's version number and exit
-v, --verbose log more things
--cleanup, --no-cleanup
Delete temporary files (default: True)Given this input:
existing_bookmarks: remove
title: Complete Guide to the Personal Data Protection Bill
author: Medianama
keywords: privacy, surveillance, personal data protection
subject: Personal Data Protection Bill
# A Complete Guide to the Personal Data Protection Bill
- [Cover](cover.pdf)
# The Bills
- [Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019](https://example.com/2019-bill.pdf)
- [Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018](https://example.com/2018-bill.pdf)
# Other key reading material
- [Srikrishna Committee Report](2.a.pdf)
- [Dvara Research's Personal Data Protection Bill](2.b.pdf)
- [MP Shashi Tharoor's Data Protection Bill](2.c.pdf)
- [MP Jay Panda's Data Protection Bill](2.d.pdf)
- [SaveOurPrivacy.in bill](2.e.pdf)
- [TRAI recommendations on privacy](2.f1.pdf)
- [Comments on TRAI recommendations on privacy](2.f2.pdf)Will generate a PDF with proper bookmarks:
And the correct metadata:
Title: Complete Guide to the Personal Data Protection Bill
Subject: Personal Data Protection Bill
Keywords: privacy, surveillance, personal data protection
Author: Medianama
Creator: pystitcher/1.0.0
Producer: pystitcher/1.0.0Configuration options can be specified with Meta data at the top of the file.
| Option | Notes |
|---|---|
| fit | Default fit of the bookmark. Can be overwritten per bookmark See wiki for more details. |
| author | PDF Author |
| keywords | PDF Keywords |
| subject | PDF Subject |
| title | PDF Title. If left unspecified, first Heading (h1) in the document is used. |
| existing_bookmarks | What to do with existing bookmarks in individual files. Options are keep, flatten, and remove. See docs for more details. |
Additionally, PDF links specified in markdown can have attributes to alter the PDFs before merging. The below attribute will rotate the second PDF file by 90 degrees clockwise before merging:
[Part 1](1.pdf)
[Part 2](2.pdf){: rotate="90"}And the below attribute will merge only pages 2 to 5, both inclusive, from the second PDF file:
[Part 1](1.pdf)
[Part 2](2.pdf){: start=2 end=5}The list of available attributes are:
| Attribute | Notes |
|---|---|
| rotate | Rotate the PDF. Valid values are 90, 180, 270 |
| start | Start page number for PDF page selection |
| end | End page number for PDF page selection |
Additional documentation is maintained on the project wiki on GitHub.
