PDFwerks

PDFwerks is a lightweight yet comprehensive, tool for working with PDFs. It provides essential PDF manipulation tools all in one easy to use package. All operations are performed locally on your machine, ensuring your sensitive documents stay secure and private. With PDFwerks, you can finally say goodbye to uploading your documents to shady websites or paying for basic PDF operations.

Documentation

Check out the official documentation here: PDFwerks Documentation. It's more detailed and well I put a lot of effort, so go see it :)

Cross Platform Support

PDFwerks is a cross platform PDF toolkit and works across all major operating systems.

It has been locally tested and verified on both Ubuntu (including WSL2) and Windows. Additionally, Continuous Integration (CI) tests are run on Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu, ensuring core functionality remains stable across environments.

⚠️ Important: tkinter is a required dependency for PDFwerks. For OS specific installation instructions, see the PDFwerks Documentation

Installation

You can install PDFwerks using pip:

pip install pdfwerks

Usage

Run the tool directly from your terminal with:

pdfwerks

Command Line Interface (CLI)

You can also use PDFwerks through the CLI for quick PDF operations without using the TUI.

Merge PDFs

pdfwerks merge file1.pdf file2.jpg [file3.pdf ...] [-o OUTPUT]

• Merge two or more files into one PDF. (Supported File Types: *.pdf, *.jpg, *.png, *.jpeg, *.txt)
• Use -o or --output to specify the output file path. (Defaults to ~Downloads/merged.pdf if not specified)

Compress PDFs

pdfwerks compress file.pdf [--level LEVEL] [-o OUTPUT]

• Compress and reduce the size of a PDF file
• Use --level to choose the compression strength - low, medium (default), or high.
• Use -o or --output to specify the output file path. (Defaults to ~Downloads/compressed.pdf if not specified)

Convert Image to PDF

pdfwerks convert-image file.jpg [-o OUTPUT]

• Converts any image to a PDF file (Supported File Types: *.jpg, *.png, *.jpeg)
• Use -o or --output to specify the output file path. (Defaults to ~Downloads/converted.pdf if not specified)

Extract Text

pdfwerks extract file.pdf --format [text|markdown|json] [-o OUTPUT]

• Extract text from a PDF file and export it to the selected formats
• Use --format to specify the export format. This is required and must be one of: text, markdown, or json.
• Use -o or --output to specify the output file path. (Defaults to ~Downloads/extracted.[format] if not specified)

PDF Security

Enable Password Protection

pdfwerks enable-pwd file.pdf --pwd PASSWORD [-o OUTPUT]

• Enables password protection for a PDF file
• Use --pwd to specify the new password for the file. This is required.
• Use -o or --output to specify the output file path. (Defaults to ~Downloads/encrypted.pdf if not specified)

Disable Password Protection

pdfwerks disable-pwd file.pdf --pwd PASSWORD [-o OUTPUT]

• Disables password protection for an encrypted PDF file
• Use --pwd to specify the password for the encrypted PDF file. This is required.
• Use -o or --output to specify the output file path. (Defaults to ~Downloads/decrypted.pdf if not specified)

Update PDF Password

pdfwerks update-pwd file.pdf --old-pwd OLD_PASSWORD --new-pwd NEW_PASSWORD [-o OUTPUT]

• Updates the password for a password protected PDF file
• Use --old-pwd to specify the old password and --new-pwd to specify the new password for the PDF file. These are required.
• Use -o or --output to specify the output file path. (Defaults to ~Downloads/updated_pwd.pdf if not specified)

Delete Pages

pdfwerks delete-pages file.pdf --pages PAGES [-o OUTPUT]

• Deletes the specified pages from a PDF file
• Use --pages to specify pages to delete in the PDF file. Use commas and ranges, e.g., 1,3,5-7,10. This is required.
• Use -o or --output to specify the output file path. (Defaults to ~Downloads/deleted.pdf if not specified)

Help & Version

pdfwerks --help
pdfwerks --version

For Developers

If you want to test, contribute or customize the tool locally:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/adithya-menon-r/PDFwerks.git
   cd PDFwerks

2. Create a virtual environment and activate it:

   python -m venv .venv
   .venv\Scripts\activate    # On Linux/Mac: source .venv/bin/activate

3. Install dependencies and the package in editable mode:

   pip install -e .

Optional Dependencies

Depending on what you are working on, you can install extras as needed:

• For tests:

  pip install -e .[test]

• For documentation:

  pip install -e .[docs]

You can now make changes to the code, run tests, or build documentation without reinstalling the package.

Running Tests

Once test dependencies are installed (using pip install -e .[test]), you run the full test suite with:

pytest

All test files are located in the tests/ directory and are automatically discovered by pytest.

License

PDFwerks is licensed under the MIT LICENSE

Author

PDFwerks is developed and maintained by Adithya Menon R