PDFtk Builder [PDFtk GUI]

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Cornflower
Posts: 244
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:58 am
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Re: PDFtk Builder Enhanced

#16 Post by Cornflower »

I consider this a major upgrade, not a new product. Angus Johnson, the creator of PDFtk Builder, collaborated with David King to enhance both the GUI and the functionality of PDFtk Builder. It is now published under David King's name It is still portable and stealth, as best I can tell.

Version 4.1.6
Homepage: https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdftk- ... -enhanced/
Installation: Download .zip file, and extract to folder of choice. You many choose to omit or move the doc folder (with pdftk and PDFtk Builder manuals) elsewhere but if you do, access to them from the help menu will be lost.

New features:
Interleave. (pdftk Shuffle) I actually use this on occasion. If you scan a book and split the pages, you can interleave them back into order.
Split pdfs into Chunk sizes. Instead of bursting a pdf into single pages and recombining into chunks (for perhaps creation of booklets for printing), this does it in one step.
Numbering pages. You can now stamp any subset of pages, position the page number, and add prefixes and suffixes to the page number. You can also set Portrait or Landscape mode.
Tool Sets. Too many to mention. There are 4 tool sets for dumping and updating pdf info (great for cleaning up bookmarks), attaching files or unattaching (unpacking) them; decrypting, repairing, (un)compressing files; form tools for PDF forms; and Advanced (this will have a learning curve as it uses pdftk templates)

New functionality:
Add the files on the first tab ("Join Files") then use the file list for the other tabs. Previously, the other tabs could only work on a single file, and you had to retrieve it on each tab.
View the result file (View button) or any source file (View-1) files. You can open pdfs to verify contents, without leaving the app.
Right-click context menu
Copying paths to/from the clipboard. You can copy a filepath to a PDF by clicking on the left > button on each tab.
Locate and Pipe. Locate opens the path to the selected file in windows explorer. Pipe copies the output file generated by a function to become the new source file (for doing multiple operations on a file, e.g., rotating some pages one way, then some others another way.

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Midas
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Re: PDFtk Builder [PDFtk GUI]

#17 Post by Midas »

Thanks for bringing the update to the community's attention, Cornflower -- as an essential tool in my limited PDF toolset, PDFtk Builder is highly prized for its simplicity and portability.

Some further info about the changes: it appears that it's now called PDFTK Builder Enhanced and has its own homepage at https://pdftk-builder-enhanced.sourceforge.io/.
PDFTK Builder is a free, graphical user interface (GUI) for the Windows version of the popular PDF ToolKit (PDFtk) command line tool, PDFtk Server by Sid Steward. This project modifies Version 3 of PDFTK Builder by Angus Johnson to: (1) enhance the user interface, (2) add PDF operations and options and (3) update the program to be compatible with later versions of PDFtk (v2.02 supplied).
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As noted, PDFTK Builder Enhanced latest release is v4.1.6, dated 2021-05-28 (changes and downloads also available from https://pdftk-builder-enhanced.sourceforge.io/).

Minor niggle: in the "About" dialog, the URL therein is pointing to Sourceforge.net main page, not the program's own (something I did correct in my copy with Angus Johnson own ResHacker :))...

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Andrew Lee
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Re: PDFtk Builder [PDFtk GUI]

#18 Post by Andrew Lee »

So the question is, should we create another entry for the "Enhanced" version, or simply update the existing entry?

My own preference is to update existing, and add a note pointing to the older version.

My rationale is, as Cornflower mentioned, it is a major upgrade, not a new product. So I think we should update existing entry.

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Midas
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Re: PDFtk Builder [PDFtk GUI]

#19 Post by Midas »

Andrew Lee wrote:My own preference is to update existing, and add a note pointing to the older version.
Considering the manifest continuity of the whole project, I support that option, too.

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webfork
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Re: PDFtk Builder [PDFtk GUI]

#20 Post by webfork »

Andrew Lee wrote: Thu Dec 02, 2021 3:09 pm My own preference is to update existing, and add a note pointing to the older version.
I think the only time I'd give it a separate entry if there was a fork with dramatic features / UI change. So yeah, an update and maybe a link to the old download/extract info in forums.

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