Tools, Services and Code for
PDF Users and Programmers
Install Pdftk
Pdftk installers are available for Windows, Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux and other platforms.
Pdftk runs on a variety of platforms, including: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and Solaris. Installation packages are available for some of these platforms. If a package is not available for your platform, then download the source code and build pdftk as described elsewhere. Note that some of the third-party packages do not provide the latest version of pdftk (which is 1.44). Check the version history to see how well an older version of pdftk might suit your needs.
Pdftk License
Pdftk is licensed to the public under the GPL. If you write software that uses any portion of pdftk and plan to distribute it along with your software, you will need a commercial license. The exception to this rule is if your software is licensed to the public under the GPL or another compatible license. Read more about pdftk’s GPL license. You can purchase commercial licenses online or contact us to learn more about the pdftk commercial license.
Windows Program Download
Download and unzip the following file. Move the resulting pdftk.exe and libiconv2.dll to a convenient location, such as C:\windows\system32. Open a command prompt and type pdftk --help. You should see the pdftk documentation appear in the terminal.
pdftk-1.44-win.zip (3.1MB)
Macintosh OS X Snow Leopard Installer
Download the following disk image. Open it and launch the installer. It will walk you through the installation process. When it is finished, open the Terminal and type pdftk --help. You should see the pdftk documentation appear in the terminal.
This installer doesn’t work on older versions of OS X — sorry!
pdftk-1.44-osx10.6.dmg (16MB)
Third-Party Packages
The following packages and installers aren’t maintained by PDF Labs.
Debian Packages
Pdftk 1.41 packages are available for Debian. Thank You to Johann Felix Soden for maintaining these Debian packages!
You can install pdftk in Debian from the command line by running sudo apt-get install pdftk or by running the Synaptic Package Manager and selecting pdftk for installation.
Ubuntu Packages
Pdftk 1.41 packages are available for Ubuntu.
You can install pdftk in Ubuntu from the command line by running sudo apt-get install pdftk or by running the Synaptic Package Manager and selecting pdftk for installation.
SuSE 10 RPM Package Download
SuSE provides pdftk 1.41 for SuSE 10.3 and pdftk 1.12 for SuSE 10.2.
FreeBSD Port
A pdftk 1.41 port is available for FreeBSD. Thank You to glarkin for maintaining this port!
Gentoo Package
Pdftk 1.41 packages are available for Gentoo Linux. Thank You to the Gentoo team for maintaining these packages!
SuSE 9.2 RPM Package Download
Bernhard Walle has kindly provided binary and source RPMs for pdftk 1.12.
SuSE 9.0 RPM Package Download
Tristan Miller has kindly provided a binary RPM for pdftk 1.00. He says it should also work for SuSE 8.2 users and other i386-compatible GNU/Linux systems.
pdftk-1.00-1.i386.rpm, or directly from http://www.nothingisreal.com/rpm/
SuSE 8.2 RPM Package Downloads
Friedrich Lobenstock has kindly provided binary and source RPMs for SuSE 8.2 users.
pdftk-1.00-0.i386.rpm, or directly from ftp://ftp.fl.priv.at/pub/pdftk/
pdftk-1.00-0.src.rpm, or directly from ftp://ftp.fl.priv.at/pub/pdftk/
Macintosh OS X Panther Installer
Scott E. Lasley has kindly provided this pdftk 1.12 installer package for OS X 10.3.
About PDF Labs
PDF Labs is where you can find professional tools and services for your PDF-related jobs. It is run by Sid Steward, author of PDF Hacks (O’Reilly) and the popular PDF Toolkit.
Contact Sid Steward by email. Please include pdftk in the subject, even if it isn’t related to your inquiry:
About PDF Hacks
"If you like pdftk, then you’ll appreciate the other 25 programs and scripts I created for my book, PDF Hacks. Read some sample hacks and the Table of Contents. See an online example or two, and then buy the book. Thanks!" — Sid
Copyright © 2004–2011 Sid Steward