[Tex/LaTex] pdfcrop and –bbox command line option

pdfcroppdftex

This tool that's distributed with texlive has no actual documentation for the bbox parameter. It just says that

--bbox "<left> <bottom> <right> <top>"

What units do these number follow? Say I have a letter sized paper, what will be the intervals on which these numbers are defined? Also is the right coordinate computed from the left or right margin? Same with top.

Best Answer

These coordinates are referenced as bp (or big points), which is different from TeX's pt. More specifically, 1in is equivalent to 72bp or 72.27pt.

A letter-sized paper (8.5in x 11in) consists of 612bp x 792bp, typically with coordinates gives as (0,0) and (612,792). Since these are coordinates, they are not calculated from one another. That is, coordinates of the form (100,100) and (712,892) would still represent a letter-sized paper, while (100,100) and (612,792) represents a sheet of paper that has dimensions 7.11in x 9.61in.

Conversions between units is available, as an example, from Is there a command to convert cm to bp?

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] pdfcrop fails to run on a file

The error messages show, that the format generation for plain pdfTeX failed. Try

fmtutil --byfmt pdftex

If it succeeds, then you can try pdfcrop again. Otherwise, try updating the TeX distribution, perhaps the error is already fixed.

pdfcrop can also be used without format:

$ pdfcrop --ini FOAGaug1612public.pdf test.pdf

The file FOAGaug1612public.pdf contains pages without contents that cause some warnings and the xref table is not correct for some entries. And the file was generated by LaTeX with lots of overfull \hboxes. Apart from this you should get a cropped test.pdf.

[Tex/LaTex] pdfcrop does not work

Perhaps there is a problem with redirection of standard/error output with your Perl version. Try updating. The current version is 5.16.1.1601.

Also I have written a test script that tries different execution methods with and without redirecting:

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use strict;
$^W=1;

use File::Spec::Functions qw(devnull);
my $null = devnull();

my $prg = '"C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.06\bin\gswin64c.exe"';
# $prg = '"C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.05\bin\gswin32c.exe"';

my $testfile = 'Instructions-autopp.pdf';
# $testfile = 'test.pdf';
my $cmdline =
  "$prg -sDEVICE=bbox -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -c save pop -f $testfile";

sub analyze {
    if ($? == -1) { print "! Execution error: $!/$^E\n"; }
    elsif ($? & 127) { print sprintf "! Signal: %d\n", $? & 127; }
    elsif ($? != 0) { print sprintf "! Exit code: %d\n", $? >> 8; }
    else { print "* No error.\n"; }
}

sub test {
    print "\n*** system() ***\n";

    system($cmdline);
    analyze();

    print "\n*** backticks ***\n";
    my $result = `$cmdline`;
    analyze();
    print "==========\n";
    print $result;
    print "==========\n";

    print "\n*** pipe ***\n";
    my $ret = open(IN, "$cmdline |");
    if ($ret) {
        while (<IN>) {
            chomp;
            print "[[$_]]\n";
        }
        close(IN);
        analyze();
    }
    else {
        print "! Error: Execution error: $!/$^E\n";
    }
}

test();

print "\n*** with stderror redirection ***\n";
$cmdline .= " 2>&1";
test();

print "\n*** with stderror and stdout redirection ***\n";
$cmdline .= " 1>$null";
test();

1;
__END__

The result (example with win32/ActivePerl 16.0.1):

*** system() ***
GPL Ghostscript 9.05 (2012-02-08)
Copyright (C) 2010 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
Processing pages 1 through 2.
Page 1
%%BoundingBox: 72 696 341 767
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.287998 696.401979 340.685990 766.925977
Page 2
%%BoundingBox: 72 95 321 770
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.503998 95.147997 320.093990 769.985977
* No error.

*** backticks ***
%%BoundingBox: 72 696 341 767
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.287998 696.401979 340.685990 766.925977
%%BoundingBox: 72 95 321 770
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.503998 95.147997 320.093990 769.985977
* No error.
==========
GPL Ghostscript 9.05 (2012-02-08)
Copyright (C) 2010 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
Processing pages 1 through 2.
Page 1
Page 2
==========

*** pipe ***
[[GPL Ghostscript 9.05 (2012-02-08)]]
[[Copyright (C) 2010 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.]]
[[This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.]]
[[Processing pages 1 through 2.]]
[[Page 1]]
%%BoundingBox: 72 696 341 767
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.287998 696.401979 340.685990 766.925977
[[Page 2]]
%%BoundingBox: 72 95 321 770
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.503998 95.147997 320.093990 769.985977
* No error.

*** with stderror redirection ***

*** system() ***
GPL Ghostscript 9.05 (2012-02-08)
Copyright (C) 2010 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
Processing pages 1 through 2.
Page 1
%%BoundingBox: 72 696 341 767
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.287998 696.401979 340.685990 766.925977
Page 2
%%BoundingBox: 72 95 321 770
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.503998 95.147997 320.093990 769.985977
* No error.

*** backticks ***
* No error.
==========
GPL Ghostscript 9.05 (2012-02-08)
Copyright (C) 2010 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
Processing pages 1 through 2.
Page 1
%%BoundingBox: 72 696 341 767
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.287998 696.401979 340.685990 766.925977
Page 2
%%BoundingBox: 72 95 321 770
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.503998 95.147997 320.093990 769.985977
==========

*** pipe ***
[[GPL Ghostscript 9.05 (2012-02-08)]]
[[Copyright (C) 2010 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.]]
[[This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.]]
[[Processing pages 1 through 2.]]
[[Page 1]]
[[%%BoundingBox: 72 696 341 767]]
[[%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.287998 696.401979 340.685990 766.925977]]
[[Page 2]]
[[%%BoundingBox: 72 95 321 770]]
[[%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.503998 95.147997 320.093990 769.985977]]
* No error.

*** with stderror and stdout redirection ***

*** system() ***
%%BoundingBox: 72 696 341 767
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.287998 696.401979 340.685990 766.925977
%%BoundingBox: 72 95 321 770
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.503998 95.147997 320.093990 769.985977
* No error.

*** backticks ***
* No error.
==========
%%BoundingBox: 72 696 341 767
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.287998 696.401979 340.685990 766.925977
%%BoundingBox: 72 95 321 770
%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.503998 95.147997 320.093990 769.985977
==========

*** pipe ***
[[%%BoundingBox: 72 696 341 767]]
[[%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.287998 696.401979 340.685990 766.925977]]
[[%%BoundingBox: 72 95 321 770]]
[[%%HiResBoundingBox: 72.503998 95.147997 320.093990 769.985977]]
* No error.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] pdfcrop fails to run on a file

[Tex/LaTex] pdfcrop does not work

Related Question