PDF-Shuffler/PDFArranger
PDF-Shuffler is a small application that allows you to merge or split pdf documents. It also allows you to rotate, crop and rearrange pages within a pdf file using an intuitive and interactive graphical interface.
As an educator, I used PDF-Shuffler to help me rearrange PDF files and split them apart. However, you don't have to be an educator to benefit from this tool. |
On this page, I will show you how to install the program and I will illustrate how to use all of these features to help you manipulate your PDF files.
How to Install PDF-Shuffler:
1. Open the Terminal (Shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + T)
2. Type the following command: sudo apt-get update
3. Press Enter or Return and type in your password
4. Type the following command: sudo apt-get install pdfshuffler
5. Type Y and press Enter or Return
How to Uninstall PDF-Shuffler:
1. Open the Terminal (Shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + T)
2. Type the following command: sudo apt-get remove pdfshuffler
To start PDF-Shuffler, click on the Applications menu, highlight Office, and then select PDF-Shuffler.
1. Open the Terminal (Shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + T)
2. Type the following command: sudo apt-get update
3. Press Enter or Return and type in your password
4. Type the following command: sudo apt-get install pdfshuffler
5. Type Y and press Enter or Return
How to Uninstall PDF-Shuffler:
1. Open the Terminal (Shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + T)
2. Type the following command: sudo apt-get remove pdfshuffler
To start PDF-Shuffler, click on the Applications menu, highlight Office, and then select PDF-Shuffler.
Navigating the PDF-Shuffler Screen
- Titlebar - Document name and file location appears in the titlebar.
- Menu Bar - A thin, horizontal bar containing the labels of four drop-down menus (File, Edit, View, and Help).
- Toolbar - A row of icons that control various functions of the program.
- Open Button - Allows you to locate and open a PDF file.
- Save As Button (a.k.a. Export Button) - Allows you to specify the name and location of the PDF file you are saving.
- Zoom In - Allows you to increase the magnification of the PDF images.
- Zoom Out - Allows you to decrease the magnification of the PDF images.
- Rotate Left - Turns a selected page or pages 90 degrees left.
- Rotate Right - Turns a selected page or pages 90 degrees right.
Editing a PDF File & Splitting It Apart
To open a PDF file, click the Open Button (green plus icon) on the toolbar.
To open a PDF file, click the Open Button (green plus icon) on the toolbar.
When the Import... dialog box appears, locate and select the PDF file you want to modify. Then click the Open button to open the PDF file.
Your PDF file should load and ready for you to edit.
You can click the Zoom Out button on the toolbar if you need to see more pages at a time or to make the pages smaller and seem to be farther away.
You can click the Zoom In button on the toolbar if you need to see the contents of your individual pages.
In my PDF example, I am using a released practice for a sixth grade science exam. As you can see in the images above, the file contains a cover page and the last two pages is the answer key to the practice exam. I don't need to print the cover page and I definately don't won't to print the answers for students. Using PDF-Shuffler makes this a very simple task.
To remove the cover page, click on it to select it and click the Delete button on the Toolbar.
To remove the cover page, click on it to select it and click the Delete button on the Toolbar.
The cover page will immediately be deleted. Be careful using the Delete button, you will not be prompted with a warning to make sure that you meant to delete a selected page or a group of selected pages.
Next, we want to split the answer key from the exam. You have to select the last two pages before you can export them to a new file. Click on one of the last two pages and then press and hold down the Shift button while pressing the right or left arrow key to highlight the file to the right or left of the currently selected file. You may also press and hold down the Ctrl button while left clicking your mouse on individual pages to select random pages.
To export the answers into a separate file, click the Save As Button (a.k.a. Export Button) or right-click one of the selected files and click on Export selection...
An Export... dialog box will appear that will allow you to give the new file a name and let you choose the location you want to save the new file.
The new file immediately appeared in my Documents folder. The second file is my new answer key. The first file is the original file that still contains the cover and answer key because I have never saved the changes to the original file.
You can now remove the answers from the original file since you have created an individual answer key file. Select the last two pages and press the Delete button on the Toolbar or right-click on one of the selected files and click the Delete option.
The two answer pages will immediately disappear from your original file.
You can now save the new file to keep your original file intact or unchanged. Click the Save As Button (a.k.a. Export Button) to save your new file.
Give your new file a name that will help you identify what it is at a later date. This file will only contain the practice questions for the 6th grade science final exam. It will not have a cover or answers.
You now have the original file, an answer key file, and a student version of the file (only contains the practice questions).
You just went through an example of deleting an unwanted section or sections from a PDF file and exporting or splitting a file apart. Now lets take a look at how we can merge two PDF files together.
How To Merge PDF Files
Open the file in PDF-Shuffler that you want at the beginning of the merged file. I will open my new 6th-grade-science-common-exam-student-version file that I created in the previous section on Splitting PDF files. This time, I will open the file in PDF-Shuffler by right-clicking on the file highlight Open With and then click on PDF-Shuffler.
How To Merge PDF Files
Open the file in PDF-Shuffler that you want at the beginning of the merged file. I will open my new 6th-grade-science-common-exam-student-version file that I created in the previous section on Splitting PDF files. This time, I will open the file in PDF-Shuffler by right-clicking on the file highlight Open With and then click on PDF-Shuffler.
The file will immediately load into PDF-Shuffler. You are now ready to click the Open Button, on the Toolbar, to add the next PDF file to the end of the current one.
In my example, I will add the answers to the end of the student questions. After I clicked the Open Button on the Toolbar, an Import... dialog box appeared. I clicked on the file that contained the answers and I clicked the Open button.
The answers from the second file appeared at the end of the questions from the first file.
You are now ready to save your merged file. Click the Save As Button (a.k.a. Export Button) and when the Export... dialog box appears, give your file a unique name that will help you identify the file at a later date. I called my file, "combined-files-sample" because I don't plan to keep this file. I'm just creating it to illustrate how to merge PDF files and save the combined results.
You can see the new file in my Documents folder.
Rotate, Crop and Rearrange Pages in a PDF File
PDF-Shuffler gives you the ability to rotate a page or pages within a PDF file, it will allow you to crop a page in a PDF file, and it will allow you to rearrange the order of the pages. Let's use the last file we created to illustrate these features. I will open the file "combined-files-sample."
PDF-Shuffler gives you the ability to rotate a page or pages within a PDF file, it will allow you to crop a page in a PDF file, and it will allow you to rearrange the order of the pages. Let's use the last file we created to illustrate these features. I will open the file "combined-files-sample."
Lets rotate the answers 90 degrees counter-clockwise. Select the last two files.
Now click the Rotate Left button on the Toolbar to turn the selected pages 90 degrees left or counter-clockwise.
If you click the Rotate Right button on the Toolbar it will turn the selected pages 90 degrees right or clockwise. Clicking it one time will put the pages back to their original position.
You can also select a page or pages and right-click on one of the selected files and choose to rotate the pages right or left.
I selected Rotate Right in the pop-up menu.
I then right-clicked the selected files and clicked on Rotate Left.
This put the pages back to their original position.
PDF-Shuffler also allows you to crop a page or selected pages in a PDF file. I will crop the last page in my sample PDF file. I clicked on the last page to select it and then I right-clicked the page to bring up a pop-up menu that will give access to the Crop feature.
A Crop Selected Pages dialog box will appear after you click the Crop option in the pop-up menu.
I will crop off the bottom half of the last page by putting 50% in the Bottom Crop Margins % of height.
After I clicked the OK button the page was cut in half.
PDF-Shuffler gives you the ability to rearrange pages in a PDF file. You need to select the files you want to move. Then drag them to their new location.
Drag your selected pages to your new location and drop them to place them there.
You can click the Save As Button (a.k.a. Export Button) to save your new file.
As you can see in all my examples, PDF-Shuffler is a powerful little program that allows you to delete selected pages within your PDF file, it allows you to rotate, crop and rearrange selected pages within a PDF file. You can also use it split or merge PDF files. This is a handy tool for educators or anyone that works with PDF files on a daily basis.
If you prefer a little newer piece of software than you can install PDFArranger on your system. PDF-Shuffler has been updated in years, so someone decided to fork the project to continue developing it. PDFArranger works and looks like PDF-Shuffler. It's a nice little tool that allows you to split, merge, rotate reorder, and crop one or multiple PDF files in Linux and/or Windows. Yes, you can download and install the program on your MS Windows computer. Just click on the file name with the .msi file extension to start the download:
pdfarranger-1.3.0-mingw.msi. You can also install PDF-Shuffler on MS Windows, but it's part of the PDF Booklet package. You can click here to start the download PDF Book Shuffler. In my opinion, I think PDF-Shuffler works better than PDFArranger in MS Windows.
If you have recently installed or upgraded to WPS Office for Linux version 11.1.0.8722 then you may have noticed that PDF-Shuffler, PDFArranger, and PDF Mod no longer works or works as good as it once did. That's because the newest version of WPS Office installs a PDF viewer that modifies your system. As you can see in the image below, when I ran pdfshuffler and pdfarranger in the Terminal it reported that the "File type not supported!" PDFArranger let me know why it was no longer supported, "application/wps-office.pdf" caused my program to no longer be supported. I removed the entire WPS Office suite and all of my PDF editors worked great again.
pdfarranger-1.3.0-mingw.msi. You can also install PDF-Shuffler on MS Windows, but it's part of the PDF Booklet package. You can click here to start the download PDF Book Shuffler. In my opinion, I think PDF-Shuffler works better than PDFArranger in MS Windows.
If you have recently installed or upgraded to WPS Office for Linux version 11.1.0.8722 then you may have noticed that PDF-Shuffler, PDFArranger, and PDF Mod no longer works or works as good as it once did. That's because the newest version of WPS Office installs a PDF viewer that modifies your system. As you can see in the image below, when I ran pdfshuffler and pdfarranger in the Terminal it reported that the "File type not supported!" PDFArranger let me know why it was no longer supported, "application/wps-office.pdf" caused my program to no longer be supported. I removed the entire WPS Office suite and all of my PDF editors worked great again.
If you want to install PDFArranger on your system, then open your Terminal and enter the following:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linuxuprising/apps
sudo apt update
sudo apt install pdfarranger
How to Uninstall PDFArranger:
1. Open the Terminal (Shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + T)
2. Type the following command: sudo apt-get remove pdfarranger
This will install the most current version of PDFArranger on your system.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linuxuprising/apps
sudo apt update
sudo apt install pdfarranger
How to Uninstall PDFArranger:
1. Open the Terminal (Shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + T)
2. Type the following command: sudo apt-get remove pdfarranger
This will install the most current version of PDFArranger on your system.
I hope this has helped you install or repair your PDF-Shuffler or PDFArranger programs.
Take care!
Take care!
Aug 20, 2019