Import

Convert one or more image files into a PDF file. Have a look at some examples.

  • Every image file will be rendered onto a separate page.

  • If you pass in a single image file name a single page PDF will be created.

  • If you pass in a list of image files a photo album gets created as a result of the concatenation of pages containing a single image each.

  • By supplying a configuration string you can specify layout details like position, dimensions, scaling and the paper size to be used.

  • The command will create the output file if it does not exist otherwise it will append to it. This feature comes in handy when you have a cover page and want to append a photo album to it.

Usage

  1. pdfcpu import [-v(erbose)|vv] [description] outFile imageFile...

Flags

flagdescription
verboseturn on loggingno
vvverbose loggingno

Arguments

namedescriptionrequired
descriptionconfiguration stringno
outFilePDF output fileyes
imageFile…one or more input image filesyes

Description

A configuration string to specify the details of the image layout on the page.

parameterdescriptionvaluesdefault
ddimensions(width, height) in user units eg. ‘400 200’d: 595 842
fform/paper sizepaper size to be used. Append L or P to enforce landscape/portrait modef: A4
ppositionone of full or the anchors: tl, tc, tr, l, c, r, bl, bc, brp: full
ooffset(dx,dy) in user units eg. ‘15 20’o: 0 0
sscale factor0.0 <= s <= 1.0 followed by optional abs or rels: 0.5 rel

Anchors for positioning

leftcenterright
toptltctr
lcr
bottomblbcbr

Default description

  1. 'f:A4, d:595 842, p:full, o:0 0, s:0.5 rel'

  • You only have to specify any parameter diverging from the default.

  • Only one of dimensions or format is allowed.

  • The default position full enforces image dimensions equal to page dimensions.

Examples

Create a single page photo.pdf containing photo.png using the default positioning p:full. The page size dimensions will match the dimensions of the image:

  1. pdfcpu import photo.pdf photo.png

Import - 图1

Create a single page PDF using paper size f:A5 using the default orientation portrait which could also be expressed with f:A5P. Use the positioning parameter p:c to center the image on the page and the default relative scaling s:0.5 rel:

  1. pdfcpu import 'f:A5, p:c' photo.pdf photo.jpg

Import - 图2

Create a single page PDF using paper size f:A5L using the orientation landscape. Use the positioning parameter p:c to center the image on the page and the default relative scaling s:0.5 rel:

  1. pdfcpu import 'f:A5L, p:c' photo.pdf photo.jpg

Import - 图3

Create a single page PDF using A5 landscape mode, a relative scaling of 0.5 and the positioning p:bl which anchors the picture to the bottom left page corner:

  1. pdfcpu import 'f:A5L, p:bl' photo.pdf photo.jpg

Import - 图4

Create a single page PDF using A5 landscape mode, relative scaling 0.5, positioning p:r which anchors the picture to the right side vertically centered. Use a negative horizontal offset o:-20 0 to impose a margin:

  1. pdfcpu import 'f:A5L, p:r, o:-20 0' photo.pdf photo.jpg

Import - 图5

Import photo.jpg into a 500 x 500 single page PDF anchoring the image to the top left corner using a relative scaling of 0.3:

  1. pdfcpu import 'd:500 500, p:tl, s:0.3 rel' photo.pdf photo.jpg

Import - 图6

Import photo.jpg into a 500 x 500 single page PDF anchoring the image to the top left corner using a scaling of 1:

  1. pdfcpu import 'd:500 500, p:tl, s:1' photo.pdf photo.jpg

Import - 图7

Generate a PDF photo album assuming pics/ contains image files (jpg, png, tif):

  1. pdfcpu import album.pdf pics/*

Generate a PDF photo album with images centered on the page using the default relative scaling of 0.5:

  1. pdfcpu import 'p:c' album.pdf pics/*

The following command also generates a PDF album but additionally configures the paper size Letter and positions the images to be anchored to the bottom left corner with a horizontal offset of 10 points and a vertical offset of 20 points with a scaling of 0.3 relative to page dimensions:

  1. pdfcpu import 'f:Letter, p:bl, o:10 20, s:0.3' album.pdf *.jpg *.png

If an album created by Import ends up having some pages with images not in upright position the Rotate command comes to the rescue. Let’s say we just have created an album and the images on page 3 and 4 need to be rotated counter clockwise by 90 degrees. This happens frequently. We can fix this situation with:

  1. pdfcpu rotate -pages 3-4 album.pdf -90