Working with PDF files regularly in Ubuntu Linux? QPDF Tools is a nifty tool to manage your PDF documents.

It’s a free and open-source software, easy to use Qt based user interface for Ghostscript and Stapler, with ability to compress, split, merge and rotate your pdf documents.

The main window is simple and works with 4 buttons. Click the action you want to do for the PDF documents. Then select the PDF along with a few options and click the button to go.

The Compress a PDF file option will change the resolution for printing, Ebooks, or screen optimized. It also reduce the file size depends on the option you choose.

It however may stuck a few seconds when you clicking ‘Save‘ button on exporting file dialog.

While ‘Merge PDF files‘ option allows to add multiple PDF files, arrange them, and convert them into single, the ‘Spile a PDF file‘ option allows to extract all PDF pages or export from one page to another. And ‘Rotate a PDF file‘ can rotate left or right with live preview.

How to Install QPDF Tools:

The DEB package for Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, as well as the source tarball are available to download at the link below:

The software developer also maintains an Ubuntu PPA that support all current releases, e.g., Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, and Ubuntu 21.04. The packages for old releases, e.g., Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 14.04, and Ubuntu 16.04 are also available.

1.) Open terminal from system app launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:silash35/qpdftools

2.) Then refresh package cache (optional for Ubuntu 20.04 & higher) and install the tool via commands:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install qpdftools

Once installed, open the tool from your system application launcher and enjoy!

Uninstall QPDF Tools

While the Ubuntu PPA is used to install or upgrade the software package, you can safely remove it either by running command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:silash35/qpdftools

Or by going to ‘Software & Updates’ -> ‘Other Software’, and remove the relevant line.

To remove the software, either use Synaptic Package Manager or run command:

sudo apt remove --purge qpdftools