How to merge or reduce pdf file-size under Linux Distributions

How many times were you in a position in which you needed to merge, or reduce the size of some .pdf files ? If you are using a Linux distribution, then you can rely on some simple command-line instructions to allow you to do so easily.

First, in order to start editing the pdf files, you have to install two packages, namely Ghostscript and PDFTK. Now, in order to merge the two files enter the following in the terminal:

gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOUTPUTFILE=firstANDsecond.pdf -dBATCH first.pdf second.pdf


Notice the "AND" between the first and second files.

Now, in order to reduce the size of the pdf files, you will have to type the following in the terminal:


gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.pdf


I hope this post is helpful.



So, a Staring Contest it is: When will the other fellow blink?

Due to the economic meltdown that we have hearing about so much lately, many governments are nowadays searching for a better manner in which to carry out business.One of these governments is the Canadian government.



Because of the need for a stimulus package akin to that launched in the US, the Canadian economy has registered the first deficit in so long as a decade. Usually, when in a recession (or its wicked brother the depression) governments tend to spend more in order to revitalize the economy. The Canadian government therefore, is not looking for ways to decrease expenditure, rather, the government is thinking of ways to "spend smarter". Along comes open source software. The government has merely " issued an official Request For Information (RFI)". However, the fact that they are willing to go down this innovative road is in its own right, quite interesting. You can read the full story here. This move was also augmented by another one calling for a move towards Open Source Software when an open letter was sent to president Obama calling for the US government to rely more on open source software in its upcoming projects.

On the other side of the Atlantic, things are not looking so good for closed source software either -in this case Microsoft. The EU has much stronger antitrust laws than those in the US(antitrust laws are those that ensure that a specific company is not gaining enough clout in the market to become a monopoly), and the EC (European Commission) has determined that Microsoft has abused its position as a dominant company in the OS sector through bundling IE to Windows. There are a lot of accusations to Microsoft that it does not follow the standards and some are arguing that building software strictly along set standards should be mandatory. You can read this story here http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/02/mozilla-call-for-eu-intervention-in-browser-war-is-troubling.ars .

There is a staring contest in which closed source software companies were looking their counterparts in the open source industry eye-ball to eye-ball, and I believe the former just blinked and that the latter still have a lot to reveal. To view some of the interesting developments for Open Source Software see http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/01/alook-back-at-the-open-source-victories-of-2008.ars.