PDF Table of Contents Splitter

Command line tool that splits a PDF file by its table of contents. Written in Python.

Installation

First, make sure you have the required libraries installed.

pip install -r requirements.txt

Splitting a PDF

python pdf_splitter.py <OPTIONS> file.pdf

There are five options:

• --dry-run: Simulates the split. Prints the filenames, but does not create any files. Useful when checking if the options have been set correctly.
• --depth INTEGER: The level of depth at which the splits will occur. See figure 1 for a visual explanation. Default value is set to 1.
• --regex TEXT: Selects outline items that match a RegEx pattern. For example --regex "^Chapter" will only select outline items that start with the string Chapter.
• --overlap: Overlaps split points. By default, if Chapter 1 starts at page 1 and Chapter 2 starts at page 10, Chapter 1.pdf will contain pages 1–9, and Chapter 2.pdf will contain pages 10–.... By including the --overlap option, Chapter 1.pdf will now contain pages 1–10, and Chapter 2.pdf will contain pages 10..., etc. This is a useful option, if a section can start in the middle of a page.
• --prefix TEXT: Adds a prefix to the output filenames. For example, --prefix "CLRS " will result in output files named CLRS <outline element>.pdf.

Figure 1: Different levels of depth in a PDF outline

License

Licensed under AGPL.