pdftk 1.41 for Mac OS X 10.6
Update: The author of pdftk, Sid Steward, left the following comment:
A new version of pdftk is available (1.43) that fixes many bugs. This release also features an installer [for] OS X 10.6. Please visit to learn more and download: www.pdflabs.com.
This blog post will stick around for the time being, but I (the author of this blog) advise you to always run the latest version so that you can enjoy the latest bug fixes.
OS X Leopard users: Sorry, neither this version nor the installer offered on pdflabs.com works on OS X before 10.6. You might be able to compile from source though. Let us know if you are successful.
Due to my being a remote employee, I get to juggle with PDF files quite a bit. A great tool for common PDF manipulations (changing page order, combining files, rotating pages etc) has proven to be pdftk. Sadly, a current version for Mac OS X is not available on their homepage. In addition, it is annoying (to say the least) to compile, which is why all three third-party package management systems that I know of (MacPorts, fink, as well as homebrew), last time I checked, did not have it at all, or their versions were broken.
Now I wouldn’t be a geek if that kept me from compiling it myself. I took some hints from anoved.net who was nice enough to also provide a compiled binary, but sadly did not include the shared libraries it relies on.
Instead, I made an installer package that’ll install pdftk itself as well as the handful of libraries you need into /usr/local. Once you ran this, you can open Terminal.app, and typing pdftk should greet you as follows:
$ pdftk
SYNOPSIS
pdftk <input PDF files | - | PROMPT>
[input_pw <input PDF owner passwords | PROMPT>]
[<operation> <operation arguments>]
[output <output filename | - | PROMPT>]
[encrypt_40bit | encrypt_128bit]
(...)
You can download the updated package here: pdftk1.41_OSX10.6.dmg
(MD5 hash: ea945c606b356305834edc651ddb893d)
I only tested it on OS X 10.6.2, if you use it on older versions, please let me know in the comments if it worked.
Yep, that’s great news Hanspeter — thank you!
I would much prefer to get my apps from a maintained repository. I suppose I should grab it and run it through its paces to make sure it will handle my documents properly.
[...] To może takie coś: pdftk 1.41 for Mac OS X 10.6 | fredericiana Bardziej szczegółowy opis działania tutaj: pdftk – the pdf toolkit Equipment: MacBook [...]
hi I am just downloading it now, I have try to install it from Porticus but it did not work. I will get back 2 you soon, hopefully with good news!!
macos 10.5.8 did not work. these is the list of errors:
dyld: lazy symbol binding failed: Symbol not found: __ZSt16__ostream_insertIcSt11char_traitsIcEERSt13basic_ostreamIT_T0_ES6_PKS3_i
Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/pdftk
Expected in: /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib
dyld: Symbol not found: __ZSt16__ostream_insertIcSt11char_traitsIcEERSt13basic_ostreamIT_T0_ES6_PKS3_i
Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/pdftk
Expected in: /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib
Trace/BPT trap
Thank you! You are a lifesaver! I recently rebuilt my laptop, and could not get GCC 4.2 to build on Snow Leopard. pdftk is a mission-critical tool at my company.
A new version of pdftk is available (1.43) that fixes many bugs. This release also features an installer of OS X 10.6. Please visit to learn more and download: http://www.pdflabs.com
Thank You-
Sid Steward
Pdftk Author
[...] the blog fredericiana you can find a dmg installer containing a precompiled distribution of pdftk with all libraries [...]
The install worked for me on 10.6.5. Truly, thank you!
Can anyone suggest a python script that will concatenate and split multiple PDF files? I am currently writing an AS-Studio project and wanted to port to a python script to do the heavy lifting. Thanks.
Hank: Stapler probably does what you want. It uses the pypdf library. Just look at the source code and take what you need
Brilliant, just what I needed. Thanks!
[...] a pdftk binary for OSX and the automator script above, all I need to do now is select my two pdf documents (Set A & [...]
Hey! Great work. Have you considered creating a homebrew recipe? Would be awesome!