SYNOPSIS

rewritepdf [options] infile.pdf [outfile.pdf] [password(s)]\n";
Options:
-c --cleanse seek and destroy unreferenced metadata in the document
-C --clearannots remove all annotations (including forms)
-d --decode uncompress any encoded elements
-f --filter=name compress all elements with this filter (can use more than once)
-X --decrypt remove encryption from the document
-o --order preserve the internal PDF ordering for output
-v --verbose print diagnostic messages
-h --help verbose help message
-V --version print CAM::PDF version
-p --pass opass upass set a new owner and user password
-P --prefs print modify copy add set boolean permissions for the document

The optional password arguments are needed to open password-protected PDF files. Here's an example of password-protecting and then unprotecting it in sequence:

  rewritepdf --pass SecretPass SecretPass orig.pdf passworded.pdf
  rewritepdf --decrypt passworded.pdf unprotected.pdf SecretPass

If you want to prevent people from being able to perform the latter step, then tighten your permissions:

  rewritepdf -p Secret Secret -P 1 0 0 0 orig.pdf passworded.pdf

which means that users can print the passworded PDF, but not change it, copy-and-paste from it, or append to it.

DESCRIPTION

Read and write a PDF document, and possibly modify it along the way.

The "--cleanse" option could possibly break some PDFs which use undocumented or poorly documented PDF features. Namely, some PDFs implicitly store their "FontDescriptor" objects just before their Font objects, without explicitly referring to the former. Cleansing removes the former, causing Acrobat Reader to choke.

We recommend that you avoid the "--decode" and "--filter" options, as we're not sure they work right any longer.

AUTHOR

See CAM::PDF