How can I merge PDF files (or PS if not possible) such that every file will begin in a odd page?

Question

I am working on a UNIX system and I\'d like to merge thousands of PDF files into one file in order to print it. I don\'t know how many pages they are in advance.

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Answer 1

Martin had a good start. I updated to PyPdf2 and made a few tweaks like sorting the output by filename.

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from argparse import ArgumentParser
from glob import glob
from PyPDF2 import PdfFileReader, PdfFileWriter
import os.path
def merge(pdfpath, blank_filename, output_filename):

    with open(blank_filename, "rb") as f:
        blank = PdfFileReader(f)
        output = PdfFileWriter()

        filelist = sorted(glob(os.path.join(pdfpath,'*.pdf')))

        for pdffile in filelist:
            if pdffile == output_filename:
                continue
            print("Parse '%s'" % pdffile)

            document = PdfFileReader(open(pdffile, 'rb'))

            for i in range(document.getNumPages()):
                output.addPage(document.getPage(i))

            if document.getNumPages() % 2 == 1:
                output.addPage(blank.getPage(0))

            print("Add blank page to '%s' (had %i pages)" % (pdffile, document.getNumPages()))

        print("Start writing '%s'" % output_filename)
        with open(output_filename, "wb") as output_stream:
            output.write(output_stream)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    parser = ArgumentParser()

    # Add more options if you like
    parser.add_argument("-o", "--output", dest="output_filename", default="merged.pdf",
                      help="write merged PDF to FILE", metavar="FILE")
    parser.add_argument("-b", "--blank", dest="blank_filename", default="blank.pdf",
                      help="path to blank PDF file", metavar="FILE")
    parser.add_argument("-p", "--path", dest="path", default=".",
                      help="path of source PDF files")

    args = parser.parse_args()
    merge(args.path, args.blank_filename, args.output_filename)
`