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pikepdf Documentation
=====================
.. figure:: /images/pike.jpg
:align: right
:alt: A northern pike
:figwidth: 30%
A northern pike, or *esox lucius*. [#img1]_
**pikepdf** is a Python library allowing creation, manipulation and repair of
PDFs. It provides a Pythonic wrapper around the C++ PDF content transformation
library, `QPDF <https://github.com/qpdf/qpdf>`_.
Python + QPDF = "py" + "qpdf" = "pyqpdf", which looks like a dyslexia test and
is no fun to type. But say "pyqpdf" out loud, and it sounds like "pikepdf".
At a glance
-----------
pikepdf is a library intended for developers who want to create, manipulate, parse,
repair, and abuse the PDF format. It supports reading and write PDFs, including
creating from scratch. Thanks to QPDF, it supports linearizing PDFs and access
to encrypted PDFs.
.. code-block:: python
# Rotate all pages in a file by 180 degrees
import pikepdf
my_pdf = pikepdf.Pdf.open('test.pdf')
for page in my_pdf.pages:
page.Rotate = 180
my_pdf.save('test-rotated.pdf')
It is a low level library that requires knowledge of PDF internals and some
familiarity with the PDF specification [#pdfrm]_. It does not provide a user
interface of its own.
pikepdf would help you build apps that do things like:
.. figure:: /images/pike-cartoon.png
:align: right
:alt: A cartoon sketch of a pike
:figwidth: 30%
Pike fish are tough, hard-fighting, aggressive predators. [#img3]_
* :ref:`Copy pages <copyother>` from one PDF into another
* :ref:`Split <splitpdf>` and :ref:`merge <mergepdf>` PDFs
* Extract content from a PDF such as text or :ref:`images <extract_image>`
* Replace content, such as :ref:`replacing an image <replace_image>` without
altering the rest of the file
* Repair, reformat or :meth:`linearize <pikepdf.Pdf.save>` PDFs
* Change the size of pages and reposition content
* Optimize PDFs similar to Acrobat's features by downsampling images,
deduplicating
* Calculate how much to charge for a scanning project based on the materials
scanned
* Alter a PDF to meet a target specification such as PDF/A or PDF/X
* Add or modify PDF :ref:`metadata <accessmetadata>`
* Create well-formed but invalid PDFs for testing purposes
What it cannot do:
.. figure:: /images/pikemen.jpg
:align: right
:alt: A square of pikemen, carrying pikes
:figwidth: 30%
Pikemen bracing for a calvary charge, carrying pikes. [#img2]_
* Rasterize PDF pages for display (that is, produce an image that shows what
a PDF page looks like at a particular resolution/zoom level) – use
Ghostscript instead
* Convert from PDF to other similar paper capture formats like epub, XPS, DjVu,
Postscript – use MuPDF or PyMuPDF
* Print to paper
If you only want to generate PDFs and not read or modify them, consider
reportlab (a "write-only" PDF generator).
Requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~
pikepdf currently requires **Python 3.5+**. There are no plans to backport to
2.7 or older versions in the 3.x series.
Similar libraries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unlike similar Python libraries such as PyPDF2 and pdfrw, pikepdf is not pure
Python. Both were designed prior to Python wheels which has made Python
extension libraries much easier to work with. By leveraging the existing mature
code base of QPDF, despite being new, pikepdf is already more capable than both
in many respects – for example, it can read compress object streams, repair
damaged PDFs in many cases, and linearize PDFs. Unlike those libraries, it's not
pure Python: it is impure and proud of it.
In use
~~~~~~
pikepdf is used by the same author's `OCRmyPDF
<https://github.com/jbarlow83/OCRmyPDF>`_ to inspect input PDFs, graft the
generated OCR layers on to page content, and output PDFs. Its code contains main
practical examples, particular in ``pdfinfo.py``, ``_weave.py``, and
``optimize.py``. pikepdf is also used in the test suite.
.. toctree::
:maxdepth: 2
:caption: Introduction
:name: intro_toc
installation
release_notes
tutorial
.. toctree::
:maxdepth: 2
:caption: Topics
:name: topics_toc
topics/pages
topics/page
topics/objects
topics/streams
topics/images
topics/encoding
topics/metadata
.. toctree::
:maxdepth: 2
:caption: API
:name: api_toc
api/main
api/models
api/filters
.. toctree::
:maxdepth: 2
:caption: Reference
:name: reference_toc
arch
resources
.. rubric:: References
.. [#img1] `Public domain image <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Esox_lucius1.jpg>`_.
.. [#img3] `CC0 iamge <https://pixabay.com/en/pike-fish-predator-shchuchin-2612354/>`_.
.. [#img2] `CC-BY-SA 2.0 image <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pike_square_img_3653.jpg>`_.
.. [#pdfrm] `PDF 32000-1:2008 <https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/pdf/pdfs/PDF32000_2008.pdf>`_.
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