iText tutorial: Merge & Split PDF files using iText JAR

prem says:

Hi ,
I want to split the pdf if my pdf exceeds the given size.
For Example,
If my pdf size is 12MB,I want to split the pdf in to 5MB parts.
So i need to split the pdf in to 3, 5MB,5MB,2MB respectively.
Pls let me know whether this is possible.

Regards,
Prem

Goblin_Queen says:

I would like to paste my code here to split a PDF based on bookmarks using iText. All my bookmarks are on level1. I based my code sample on the example on this page, and that’s why I would like to place my code here. I couldn’t really find any example of splitting a PDF based on bookmarks with iText, so I thought it could help other people if I put my code on this page:

public static void splitPDFByBookmarks(String pdf, String outputFolder){
        try
        {
            PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(pdf);
            //List of bookmarks: each bookmark is a map with values for title, page, etc
            List<HashMap> bookmarks = SimpleBookmark.getBookmark(reader);
            for(int i=0; i<bookmarks.size(); i++){
                HashMap bm = bookmarks.get(i);
                HashMap nextBM = i==bookmarks.size()-1 ? null : bookmarks.get(i+1);
                //In my case I needed to split the title string
                String title = ((String)bm.get("Title")).split(" ")[2];
                
                log.debug("Titel: " + title);
                String startPage = ((String)bm.get("Page")).split(" ")[0];
                String startPageNextBM = nextBM==null ? "" + (reader.getNumberOfPages() + 1) : ((String)nextBM.get("Page")).split(" ")[0];
                log.debug("Page: " + startPage);
                log.debug("------------------");
                extractBookmarkToPDF(reader, Integer.valueOf(startPage), Integer.valueOf(startPageNextBM), title + ".pdf",outputFolder);
            }
        }
        catch (IOException e)
        {
            log.error(e.getMessage());
        }
    }
    
    private static void extractBookmarkToPDF(PdfReader reader, int pageFrom, int pageTo, String outputName, String outputFolder){
        Document document = new Document();
        OutputStream os = null;
        
        try{
            os = new FileOutputStream(outputFolder + outputName);

            // Create a writer for the outputstream
            PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.getInstance(document, os);
            document.open();
            PdfContentByte cb = writer.getDirectContent(); // Holds the PDF data
            PdfImportedPage page;
    
            while(pageFrom < pageTo) {
                document.newPage();
                page = writer.getImportedPage(reader, pageFrom);
                cb.addTemplate(page, 0, 0);
                pageFrom++;
            }
            
            os.flush();
            document.close();
            os.close();
        }catch(Exception ex){
            log.error(ex.getMessage());
        }finally {
            if (document.isOpen())
                document.close();
            try {
                if (os != null)
                    os.close();
            } catch (IOException ioe) {
                log.error(ioe.getMessage());
            }
        }
    }

dharmendra says:

i had downloaded iText jar 5.0.1 but it do not contain com.lowagie.text.table package what should i do?? i want to create table dynamically in pdf page..

Puru says:

Viral,
I was searching pdf splittig on the basis of size(excedding a given size say > 10 MB). Prem was also looking for the same last year.Just checking if you got an opportunity to write on this.

Thanks for your help
Puru

Kunu says:

Viral

Thanks for posting the code here.

Mohamed nazar says:

i was searching for the code to read a image and parse it can you post the code

Dimitri says:

Viral : If you already found the script for splitting pdfs by page size, it would be VERY handy
Thx in advance

Vishnu says:

Hi Viral,

By any chance is it possible to split the pages randomly? E.g. I have a PDF document of 20 pages and now I was a new PDF containing only 2nd, 5th, 11th and 16th page of the original document.

Thanks in advance.
Vishnu.

ManhHD says:

Thank for sharing

maddireddy says:

hi viral…can you provide sample code to generate thumbnails to a pdf page

Swati says:

nice coding…:)its wrks for me always in 1 shoot viral

Edwin Tan says:

Hi Viral Patel,

Did you manage to develop sample code to split PDFs based on size? i.e. Splitting a 8MB file into 2MB PDFs.

Regards,
Edwin

Shivakumar says:

Hi Viral , I got the following errors:

Exception in thread “main” java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
at java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream.write(Unknown Source)
at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.RandomAccessFileOrArray.InputStreamToArray(Rand
omAccessFileOrArray.java:182)
at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.RandomAccessFileOrArray.(RandomAccessFile
OrArray.java:172)
at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfReader.(PdfReader.java:237)
at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfReader.(PdfReader.java:248)
at MergePDF.splitPDF(split.java:38)
at ShivaPdf.main(split.java:87)

How to resolve them.

Luke Pacholski says:

Dimitri asked:

“Viral : If you already found the script for splitting pdfs by page size, it would be VERY handy”

I found the answer here:

http://java-x.blogspot.com/2006/11/merge-pdf-files-with-itext.html#comment-3167256311373072651

document.setPageSize(pdfReader.getPageSizeWithRotation(pageOfCurrentReaderPDF));
document.newPage();

I.e., immediately before creating a new page, set the page size to the page size (and orientation) of the page you are reading in. The only issue to be aware of is the PDF has to be (I believe) version 1.5 or higher. You’ll get errors trying to open PDFs saved as 1.4.

pdfWriter.setPdfVersion(PdfWriter.PDF_VERSION_1_5);

natalie Afota says:

Hey

I have used your code for merging few pdf files but I still have a problem to merge files that carry different sizes!
I have try to had a command to set the page size

document.newPage();
pageOfCurrentReaderPDF++;
currentPageNumber++;
document.setPageSize(pdfReader.getPageSize(pageOfCurrentReaderPDF));

Thanks, for the helpful code!

Natalie

uday says:

Very good code for merging & splitting….
good work itext…………exactly suits my requirement.

teakey says:

hi,thanks for your coding ,but I still have a problem to merge files that carry different sizes!
how could i solve it? some page is large while other is small.I am tired with it.help!

fryguy says:

Does anybody have any examples for splitting a PDF at bookmarks that exist at a level 2? The code provided by Goblin_Queen works great for level 1 bookmarks, but I’m not quite sure how to expand that to level 2 bookmarks as the resulting hashmap for the “Kids” do not contain page information.

HashMap bm = bookmarks.get(i);
List kids = (List) bm.get(“Kids”);

The kids hashmap does not have the “Page” defined.

Searock says:

You could reduce the number of lines by using PdfStamper class.

PdfReader pdfReader = new PdfReader(fileDialog.FileName);
FileOutputStream fout = new FileOutputStream(“C:\\output1.pdf”);
PdfStamper splitter = new PdfStamper(pdfReader, fout);
pdfReader.SelectPages(“1 – 10”);
splitter.Close();
pdfReader.Close();

mani says:

very useful code for all guys who r in initial stage thank u very much

Dennis Lindeman says:

I tried the concatPDFs code. It concatenates two files OK. But, it does not copy the signatures that were in the files. It also does not copy text data fields.

to split says:

thank you for the great tutorial and comments. They help me a lot, to write my own split function

dhaval says:

I used merging of pdf code but i got problem while i am going to merge A3 paper size pdf file. this code convert that files into A4 paper size with cut of the pdf image area.

CMil says:

This works but not for a lot of documents – I still used it as a good starting point, though. Since it opens the PDF FileInputStream’s in the main method, they have to stay open the entire time and never get closed. A better usage would be to create a List to hold the PDF’s filenames (instead of a List), then pass this to the concatPDFs method. Method concatPDFs would then need to loop/iterate through list (which it already does) and open each InputStream, read PDF, add it to readers, then close InputStream. Much better usage of resources when large number of files involved.
I tried it the Viral’s way and it works for up to a few hundred PDF’s, but anything more and I got a “FileNotFoundException (Too many open files)”.

Lucas Voelk says:

The above method does split the pdf however it does not preserve the orientation of the pages and will try and print them all as either landscape or portrait. This is fine unless you have a scanned document that has landscape pages turned on end in which case it tries to write out landscape in portrait format and clips the sides. The below is a method using pdfCopy that accomplishes the same thing but preserves orientation.

public static void copyPages(InputStream inputStream, OutputStream outputStream, int fromPage, int toPage){
        try {
            PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(inputStream);
            Document document = new Document();
            PdfCopy copy = new PdfCopy(document, outputStream);
            int n = reader.getNumberOfPages();
            document.open();
            for(int i = 0; i=fromPage && i<=toPage){
                    copy.addPage(copy.getImportedPage(reader,i));
                }
            }
            document.close();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();  
        } catch (DocumentException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();  
        }
    }

Fernando Bona says:

Thank you very much!

Prasad kamat says:

This is amazing blog… you guys are really putting nice solutions in the forum which I am sure helpful for thousands of people.

Nelson says:

Hi I’m using itext to merge pdf but i’m new on this and I’m facing the fallowing issue:

I want to merge each page of a pdf file lets call it A with a header pdf file lets call it B.
The issue is that when I merge pages that are portrait it works fine but now i have a page on A that is in landscape and the header page on B that is on portrait so my code is not working .
this is my code … Thanks in advance for your help

public static void iTextMerge(File baseFile, File bgFile, File outFile) throws IOException, DocumentException
	{
		
		PdfReader bgReader = new PdfReader(bgFile.getAbsolutePath());
		PdfReader baseReader = new PdfReader(baseFile.getAbsolutePath());
		FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(outFile);
		
		PdfStamper stamp = null;
		
		stamp = new PdfStamper(baseReader, out);
		Rectangle bgSize = bgReader.getCropBox(1);
		PdfImportedPage bgContent = stamp.getImportedPage(bgReader, 1);
		
		PdfGState blend = new PdfGState();
		blend.setFillOpacity(0.5f);
	//	blend.setStrokeOpacity(0.5f);
	//	blend.setBlendMode(PdfGState.BM_DARKEN);
		for (int i = 1; i <= baseReader.getNumberOfPages(); i++)
		{
			Rectangle pageSize;
			PdfContentByte content = stamp.getOverContent(i);
			 
			
		//	content.setGState(blend);
			
			pageSize = baseReader.getCropBox(i);
			pageSize.rotate();
			
			float hScale = pageSize.getWidth() / bgSize.getWidth(),
				  vScale = pageSize.getHeight() / bgSize.getHeight(),
				  dominantScale = hScale < vScale ? hScale : vScale,
				  hTrans = (float) (pageSize.getLeft() - bgSize.getLeft() * dominantScale + (pageSize.getWidth() - bgSize.getWidth() * dominantScale) / 2.0),
				  vTrans = (float) (pageSize.getBottom() - bgSize.getBottom() * dominantScale + (pageSize.getHeight() - bgSize.getHeight() * dominantScale) / 2.0);
			
			
			content.addTemplate(bgContent, dominantScale, 0, 0, dominantScale, hTrans, vTrans);
			
		}
		
		stamp.close();
		
		
	}  

Sunil Kumar says:

Hi Guys,
I need to develop a program which should compare a set of pdf files stored in one folder with a set of pdf files stored in another folder. Both folders should contain the same no. of pdf files with same name in both folders. I am able to compare the pdf files text by storing it in a String array, bt i am not able to compare the changed FONTS , and changed images. Also, i need to write the generate a new pdf file which should highlight the difference of the pdf file by changing its background color, and when we place the mouse cursor over it, it should pop-up the contents of the next pdf file which is not matching. I am able to generate the pdf file, bt not able to highlight the difference. There can be n number of pdf files in the folders. we need to do 1 by 1 comparing of pdf files.
GUYS, please suggest me some appropriate ways, how i need to implement. I need to do it in my project.

The basic requirement is to match a pdf file with another pdf file, and it should generate a pdf file with the same contents as of first pdf file ,bt it should highlight the difference i.e. text,font,image,etc difference with a pop-up(if possible) in order to show the content of next pdf file

I would appreciate any help

Thanks in ADVANCE!!!

Nikhil raj kumar says:

how to extract references from a research paper such as ieee,
and while reading ieee pdf research paper using itext pdf ,
i am able to get 1st line of 1st col then 1st row of second column,
(merging of two colums in a page),
and plz help me to guide on how to extract references from a pdf file

Vel Rajagounder says:

Viral,
I am using your code posted here to merge PDFs. It works good. Thanks for posting the code. In my PDF I have html hyper links. Those hyper links don’t work on the merged pdf, though it works on the individual PDFs. any thoughts on this?
Thanks
Vel

Owais says:

how to add header in iText ?

i tried with
HeaderFooter header = new HeaderFooter(new Phrase(chunk),true);
header.setAlignment(Element.ALIGN_CENTER);
header.setBorder(Rectangle.NO_BORDER);
document.setHeader(header);

but i t gives me error like Header Footer (Phrase,boolean) is undefined.
and setHeader properties is not there..
comment on it highly appreciate.

raju says:

h to split the single pdf into multuiple pdf(individuals)

Nirban says:

Neeed all of your help.

I needed to comare two pdfs (say pdf1 and pdf2- exactly same format, same form, just different variable data field values like interest rate) and highlight the difference in pdf2, let’s say in yellow background color, just the interest rate. Can I do it with this? Can anyone suggest anything?

I cannot thank enough if anyone can give me some idea. I am not a techie person, but I manage tech teams.

Regards, Nirban

Bert says:

I have 2 pdf files to merge using the MergePDF class:
first file contains A4(paper size) and the second file contains A3(paper size).

result from the newly generated PDF file:
the A3(paper size) page is cutting off, the portion of A4 size is merged.

how to fix this?

siddam says:

i am creating a pdf. in the second page of the pdf i need to insert another page from an exsisting pdf. How can i do this.

Could you please explain.

Shruti says:

Thank you so much for your help for splitting pdf. I would like to get have code for adding page numbers to output split file.

lisa says:

public static void iTextMerge(File baseFile, File bgFile, File outFile) throws IOException, DocumentException
   {
        
       PdfReader bgReader = new PdfReader(bgFile.getAbsolutePath());
       PdfReader baseReader = new PdfReader(baseFile.getAbsolutePath());
       FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(outFile);
        
       PdfStamper stamp = null;
        
       stamp = new PdfStamper(baseReader, out);
       Rectangle bgSize = bgReader.getCropBox(1);
       PdfImportedPage bgContent = stamp.getImportedPage(bgReader, 1);
        
       PdfGState blend = new PdfGState();
       blend.setFillOpacity(0.5f);
   //  blend.setStrokeOpacity(0.5f);
   //  blend.setBlendMode(PdfGState.BM_DARKEN);
       for (int i = 1; i <= baseReader.getNumberOfPages(); i++)
       {
           Rectangle pageSize;
           PdfContentByte content = stamp.getOverContent(i);
             
            
       //  content.setGState(blend);
            
           pageSize = baseReader.getCropBox(i);
           pageSize.rotate();
            
           float hScale = pageSize.getWidth() / bgSize.getWidth(),
                 vScale = pageSize.getHeight() / bgSize.getHeight(),
                 dominantScale = hScale < vScale ? hScale : vScale,
                 hTrans = (float) (pageSize.getLeft() - bgSize.getLeft() * dominantScale + (pageSize.getWidth() - bgSize.getWidth() * dominantScale) / 2.0),
                 vTrans = (float) (pageSize.getBottom() - bgSize.getBottom() * dominantScale + (pageSize.getHeight() - bgSize.getHeight() * dominantScale) / 2.0);
            
            
           content.addTemplate(bgContent, dominantScale, 0, 0, dominantScale, hTrans, vTrans);
            
       }
        
       stamp.close();
        
        
   }

this code give error when i try use can any boy find the error and past update code

Kanav Aggarwal says:

I was unable to solution on internet.
But finally I was able to find a trick to create a single PDF file with different page sizes.
Below code is the sample to achieve the above task (This is not the full code).

public static void main(String args[]) {

Map rateDetails = new HashMap();
rateDetails.put(“2M”, “256”);
rateDetails.put(“3M”, “512”);
rateDetails.put(“7M”, “450”);

Document document1 = new Document();
try {
PDFRateCardBuilder2 ref = new PDFRateCardBuilder2();

PdfWriter.getInstance(document1, new FileOutputStream(FILE1));
document1.setPageSize(new Rectangle(1000, 1000));
document1.setMarginMirroring(true);
document1.setMargins(50, 50, 50, 50);
document1.open();
document1.add(ref.createFirstTable());
document1.add(ref.createSecondTable());
document1.add(ref.createThirdTable());
document1.add(ref.getStaticText());
document1.newPage();

document1
.setPageSize(new Rectangle(3000,
600 + (new PDFRateCardBuilder2()
.getDummyCustomerDTOs().length) * 100));
document1.setMarginMirroring(true);
document1.setMargins(50, 50, 50, 50);
document1.open();
document1.add(ref.createFirstTableForPage2());
document1.add(ref.createSecondTable());
document1.add(ref.createThirdTable());
document1.add(ref.getStaticText());
document1.close();

System.out.println(“Hi”);

Runtime.getRuntime().exec(
“rundll32 url.dll,FileProtocolHandler ” + FILE1);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}

Java Programs says:

The code is working fine for splitting pdf files. Thanks for posting.

Archana says:

I want to generate the hash for the pdf files after splitting them.But every time if i run a same file for 15 times i am getting the different output.. why? Code :-
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.security.MessageDigest;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;

/**
*
* @author admin
*/
public class FingerprintGenerator {

public FingerprintGenerator() {
}

public String getFingerprint(String file_name) {

String fingerprint = null;
FileInputStream fis = null;
try {
MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance(“SHA-256”);
fis = new FileInputStream(file_name);
byte[] dataBytes = new byte[2048];
int nread = 0;
while ((nread = fis.read(dataBytes)) != -1) {
md.update(dataBytes, 0, nread);
}
byte[] mdbytes = md.digest();
StringBuilder hexString = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < mdbytes.length; i++) {
hexString.append(Integer.toHexString(0xFF & mdbytes[i]));
}
fingerprint = hexString.toString();
// System.out.println("Fingerprint : " + fingerprint);

} catch (FileNotFoundException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(FingerprintGenerator.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} catch (IOException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(FingerprintGenerator.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(FingerprintGenerator.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
} finally {
try {
fis.close();
return fingerprint;
} catch (IOException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(FingerprintGenerator.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
}
}
return fingerprint;
}
}
Please reply

Pankaj says:

HI Viral,
Thanks for giving nice tutorial for creating PDF File with split. I have a question that how to Generated pdf file save inside the my project folder.

thanks

Srinivasan says:

hi viral
i would like to create many number of bar charts and save it in a single pdf. can u help me out with ur same example for the bar and pie chart..

Tanuja says:

Viral how do i extract/divide a part of pdf page(single page) and add it to different pages of pdf

honey says:

I tried the concatPDFs code. It concatenates two files OK. But, it does not copy the signatures that were in the files. It also does not copy text data fields.

Angie says:

Hello Viral,

I have the same problem as Vel Rajagounder.
When I try to split my PDF source file that has html hyper links. Those hyper links don’t work on the split pdf.
Do you have the solution?
Thanks for your help
Vel

shankar says:

Hi Viral,
I have requirement like i am getting bunch(some times small data) of data in to the String and adding into new pdf page
doc.newPage(),
but i want split that data into no of page dynamically based on String length or size (which is coming from data base).
Please help me on this asap.

Thanks in advance

Mahesh says:

Hi Viral, Thanks, Nice Code working as expected.

Michele says:

I have a great problem, i have to merge two or more PDFs that have AcroFields but using your solution i lose all AcroFields, any suggestion?

ramas says:

Hi Viral, Good tutorial on “Merge PDF files in Java using iText JAR”, this works fine for me if I need to add (all pages) the second.pdf at the end of first.pdf…

How to achieve, If I want to add the second.pdf at particular page no. @ first.pdf , please give me directions, Thx.

ayat baloach says:

hey How to use com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfImportedPage it show an error in netbeans is it related to iText java please respond me thanksss.

hamed says:

hello
good day
I want create a site for convert pdf to Word persian .
I want do with Java.
I’m having problem in the reading pdf
pdf worked Right in English, but the language is persian problem
thank you