mutool clean

The clean command pretty prints and rewrites the syntax of a PDF file. It can be used to repair broken files, expand compressed streams, filter out a range of pages, etc.

mutool clean [options] input.pdf [output.pdf] [pages]

[options]

Options are as follows:

-p password

Use the specified password if the file is encrypted.

-g

Garbage collect unused objects.

-gg

In addition to -g compact xref table.

-ggg

In addition to -gg merge duplicate objects.

-gggg

In addition to -ggg check streams for duplication.

-l

Linearize PDF (no longer supported!).

-D

Save file without encryption.

-E encryption

Save file with new encryption (rc4-40, rc4-128, aes-128, or aes-256).

-O owner_password

Owner password (only if encrypting).

-U user_password

User password (only if encrypting).

-P permission

Permission flags (only if encrypting).

-a

ASCII hex encode binary streams.

-d

Decompress streams.

-z

Deflate uncompressed streams.

-f

Compress font streams.

-i

Compress image streams.

-c

Pretty-print graphics commands in content streams.

-s

Sanitize graphics commands in content streams.

-t

Compact object syntax.

-tt

Use indented object syntax to make PDF objects more readable.

-L

Print comments containing labels showing how each object can be reached from the Root.

-A

Create appearance streams for annotations that are missing appearance streams.

-AA

Recreate appearance streams for all annotations.

-m

Preserve metadata.

-S

Subset fonts if possible. (EXPERIMENTAL!)

-Z

Use object streams cross reference streams for extra compression.

--(color|gray|bitonal)-(|lossy-|lossless-)image-subsample-method method

Set the subsampling method (average, or bicubic) for the desired image types, for example color-lossy and bitonal-lossless.

--(color|gray|bitonal)-(|lossy-|lossless-)image-subsample-dpi dpi

Set the resolution at which to subsample.

--(color|gray|bitonal)-(|lossy-|lossless-)image-recompress-method quality

Set the recompression quality to either of never, same, lossless, jpeg, j2k, fax, or jbig2.

--structure=keep|drop

Keep or drop the structure tree.

input.pdf

Input file name. Must be a PDF file.

[output.pdf]

The output file. Must be a PDF file.

If no output file is specified, it will write the cleaned PDF to “out.pdf” in the current directory.

[pages]

Comma separated list of page numbers and ranges (for example: 1,5,10-15,20-N), where the character N denotes the last page. If no pages are specified, then all pages will be included.