PDFtk Server on OS X 10.11

Question

I\'ve been using PDFTK Server on OSX pre 10.11 for over a year without any issues running commands on the command line.

After installing OS

Answer 1

Thanks to github.com/quantiverge, pdftk should be installable under brew. This one is tested in OSX Sierra.

Run the following in the terminal.

brew install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/turforlag/homebrew-cervezas/master/pdftk.rb

Updated with fixes from github.com/zph - thanks!

Answer 2

Workarounds: We raised this to Sid back in August and he still has not fixed it so I think its fair to say that its a good idea to look for alternatives. Because of this, we have taken the initiative to submit a few first tools that people can enjoy for free in the following repository:

https://github.com/flexpaper/OSX-PDF-Toolkit

It contains easy to use scripts for CAT and BURST. We intend to add more tools going forward. Feel free to contribute

These new tools are using the native OSX libraries and no third party dependencies are needed whatsoever. Yay!

Edit: added info about this being a workaround

Answer 3

2020 Update

WORKED:

Please note that in order to install it on macOS High Sierra (10.13.5) or on Mac OS Catalina (10.15) (as mentioned by Ivan Kurmanov in the comments), I had to download the package from:

https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/pdftk_server-2.02-mac_osx-10.11-setup.pkg

Of course, it won't let you install normally as it's not downloaded from "App Store" so use following instructions:

1. In the Finder, locate the app you want to open.

2. Don’t use Launchpad to do this. Launchpad doesn’t allow you to access the shortcut menu.

3. Control-click the app icon, then choose Open from the shortcut menu.

4. Click Open.

5. The app is saved as an exception to your security settings, and you can open it in the future by double-clicking it just as you can any registered app.

After that just go through the installation process, which is pretty much NEXT - NEXT and enjoy :)

DID NOT WORK:

The following brew command DID NOT work for me:

brew install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/turforlag/homebrew-cervezas/master/pdftk.rb

It gave following error:

Failure while executing; /usr/bin/xar -xf /xxxx/Library/Caches/Homebrew/downloads/\#\{url_sha256\}--\* exited with 1.

Good luck!

Answer 4

@Learner I fixed the recipe here: https://github.com/zph/homebrew-cervezas/blob/master/pdftk.rb and submitted a PR to the repo you linked.

Until that's merged, you can:

brew install https://github.com/zph/homebrew-cervezas/blob/master/pdftk.rb

Answer 5

Thank you for your patience. I have successfully tested this pdftk installer and binary on OS X 10.11, El Capitan:

https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/pdftk_server-2.02-mac_osx-10.11-setup.pkg

I will update our PDF Labs site soon to reflect this update.

If you already have pdftk installed from the old installer, this should install right on top of it without a problem -- it shouldn't be necessary to remove the old pdftk before installing this one.

Note that this installer/binary has not yet been tested on older versions of OS X.

Please let me know how this works for you.

I want to thank Aaron for opening this thread and for bringing helpful attention to the problem we were having with the build tools. I also want to thank the MacPorts team for their professional and timely work!

Best Regards-

Sid Steward, PDF Labs

Answer 6

Updated status as of 2018-05-09:

1. It's not on brew standard sources
2. https://github.com/spl/homebrew-pdftk is unmaintained / deprecated
3. It is at https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-server/