PDF Labs

PDFtk Server can:

• Merge PDF Documents or Collate PDF Page Scans

• Split PDF Pages into a New Document

• Rotate PDF Documents or Pages

• Decrypt Input as Necessary (Password Required)

• Encrypt Output as Desired

• Fill PDF Forms with X/FDF Data and/or Flatten Forms

• Generate FDF Data Stencils from PDF Forms

• Apply a Background Watermark or a Foreground Stamp

• Report PDF Metrics, Bookmarks and Metadata

• Add/Update PDF Bookmarks or Metadata

• Attach Files to PDF Pages or the PDF Document

• Unpack PDF Attachments

• Burst a PDF Document into Single Pages

• Uncompress and Re-Compress Page Streams

• Repair Corrupted PDF (Where Possible)

PDFtk Server does not require Adobe Acrobat or Reader, and it runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Documentation

PDFtk’s features are fully documented on its man page. We also offer some command-line examples.

Download

We provide an installer for Windows. Many Linux distributions provide a PDFtk package you can download and install using their package manager.

Microsoft Windows

Click to download the PDFtk Server installer for Windows 10 and 11:

After installation, open a command-prompt, type pdftk and press Enter. Pdftk will respond by displaying brief usage information.

PDFtk Server GPL License

PDFtk Server (pdftk) is not public domain software. You can install it and use it at no charge under its GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 2. Pdftk uses third-party libraries. The licenses and source code for these libraries are described here under Third-Party Materials.

PDFtk Server Redistribution License

If you plan to distribute PDFtk Server as part of your own software, you will need a PDFtk Server Redistribution License. The exception to this rule is if your software is licensed to the public under the GPL or another compatible license.

Our commercial redistribution license allows you, subject to the terms of the license, to distribute an unlimited number of PDFtk Server binaries as part of one distinct commercial product. Please read the full license:

PDFtk Server Redistribution License (PDF)

Now available for $995:

Build PDFtk Server

You can compile PDFtk Server from its source code. PDFtk Server is known to compile and run on Debian, Ubuntu Linux, FreeBSD, Slackware Linux, SuSE, Solaris and HP-UX.

• Download and unpack: pdftk-2.02-src.zip (~2MB)

• Review the pdftk license information in: license_gpl_pdftk/readme.txt.

• Review the Makefile provided for your platform and confim that TOOLPATH and VERSUFF suit your installation of gcc/gcj/libgcj. If you run apropos gcc and it returns something like gcc-4.5, then set VERSUFF to -4.5. The TOOLPATH probably doesn’t need set.

• Change into the pdftk sub-directory,

• run make -f Makefile.Debian (substitute your platform’s Makefile filename)

We have built pdftk using gcc/gcj/libgcj versions 3.4.5, 4.4.1, 4.5.0 and 4.6.3. Pdftk 1.4x fails to build on gcc 3.3.5 due to missing libgcj features. If you are using gcc 3.3 or older, try building pdftk 1.12 instead.