In the next article we are going to take a look at PDF Mix Tool. This is a Qt application used to manipulate PDF files, which reached version 1.0 stable recently, although version 1.0.1 was released shortly after. This new version includes a revised user interface to make it more comfortable to use, support for editing metadata of PDF files, Qt6 support and some other things.
This graphic tool makes use of QPDF to manipulate PDF files. With PDF Mix Tool you can perform some common operations when editing PDF files. Among them it will allow us to extract, delete and rotate pages of PDF documents, combine several PDF files in a single document, add empty pages, change the layout of the pages of a PDF (size, orientation, specify the number of rows and columns, margins, etc.), and more. PDF Mix Tool is free software distributed under the terms of the GNU GPLv3 license.
In the latest released version, the application's user interface has become more intuitive. There are no longer tabs for single and multiple files. Sidebar now includes all available PDF operationsEach of them has an icon to make it easier to find what each user is looking for.
What does PDF Mix Tool allow us to do?
PDF Mix Tool is a simple and lightweight application that allows you to perform common editing operations on PDF files such as:
- Extract Pages from a PDF file.
- Delete pages.
- Rotate pages.
- Merge two or more files, specifying a set of pages for each of them.
- Modify the layout of the pages. Other changes from PDF Mix Tool 1.0 include Qt6 support and right-to-left page layout support, along with bug fixes.
- The program will give us the possibility of edit the metadata of PDF documents. It will allow us to change the title of the PDF, the author, the subject, the keywords, the creator, the producer, the date of creation and modification.
- Also, with this version, PDF Mix Tool now tries to preserve links, annotations and outlines as much as possible, no matter what operation you are using.
Install PDF Mix Tool on Ubuntu 20.04
Ubuntu users can install PDF Mix Tool in three different ways. It can be downloaded from Flatub, Snapcraft, or you can compile source.
Like Flatpak
To install this program in Ubuntu 20.04 as a Flatpak package, it will be necessary that we have this technology enabled in our system. If you still do not have it, you can continue The Guide that a colleague wrote on this blog.
When we can install these types of packages, we will only need to open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and execute the following command to install the program:
flatpak install flathub eu.scarpetta.PDFMixTool
Once the installation is complete, you can open the program looking for the launcher on our computer, or opening a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and using the command:
flatpak run eu.scarpetta.PDFMixTool
uninstall
If this program does not convince you, you can open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and run the following command to remove it:
flatpak uninstall eu.scarpetta.PDFMixTool
How to snap
If you would like to install it as snap package, you can open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and run the install command:
sudo snap install pdfmixtool
Once the installation is complete, all you have to do is find the program launcher in our team:
uninstall
For remove the snap package from this program, in a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) we will only need to use the command:
sudo snap remove pdfmixtool
Compiling the source
If you are interested in compiling the program, you can follow the instructions provided in the page in Gitlab of the project.
PDF Mix Tool is a simple and lightweight application that allows users to perform editing operations on our PDF files. This tool is quite similar to PDF Arranger, even though it uses pikepdf to modify PDF files, and PDF Mix Tool uses QPDF. This means that results may differ, so it is best to try both programs and use the one that best meets the user's needs.
If any user wants to know more about this program, they can consult the project website.