| name | nano-pdf |
| description | Edit PDFs with natural-language instructions using the nano-pdf CLI tool |
| category | productivity |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| origin | aiden |
| license | Apache-2.0 |
| tags | pdf, edit, merge, split, compress, redact, nano-pdf, cli, document, watermark |
| metadata | {"aiden":{"required_binaries":[{"name":"nano-pdf","help":"Install the nano-pdf CLI — npm i -g nano-pdf"}]}} |
nano-pdf — Natural-Language PDF Editing
Use the nano-pdf CLI to perform common PDF operations — merge, split, compress, add watermarks, redact text, and more — via simple natural-language or flag-based commands.
When to Use
- User wants to merge multiple PDFs into one
- User wants to split a PDF into individual pages or page ranges
- User wants to compress a large PDF to reduce file size
- User wants to add a watermark or page numbers to a PDF
- User wants to redact or remove specific pages
How to Use
1. Install nano-pdf
pip install nano-pdf
# Verify installation
nano-pdf --version
2. Merge multiple PDFs
nano-pdf merge report1.pdf report2.pdf appendix.pdf --output merged.pdf
3. Split a PDF into individual pages
# Split every page into a separate file
nano-pdf split document.pdf --output ./pages/
# Split a specific range into a new file
nano-pdf split document.pdf --pages 1-5 --output extract.pdf
4. Compress a PDF
# Default compression
nano-pdf compress large_file.pdf --output compressed.pdf
# Aggressive compression (lower image quality)
nano-pdf compress large_file.pdf --level high --output compressed.pdf
5. Add a watermark
nano-pdf watermark input.pdf --text "CONFIDENTIAL" --output watermarked.pdf
# Custom font size and opacity
nano-pdf watermark input.pdf --text "DRAFT" --size 60 --opacity 0.3 --output draft.pdf
6. Add page numbers
nano-pdf number input.pdf --position bottom-right --output numbered.pdf
7. Remove specific pages
# Remove pages 3 and 7 from a 10-page PDF
nano-pdf remove input.pdf --pages 3,7 --output trimmed.pdf
8. Rotate pages
# Rotate all pages 90 degrees clockwise
nano-pdf rotate input.pdf --degrees 90 --output rotated.pdf
# Rotate only page 2
nano-pdf rotate input.pdf --degrees 180 --pages 2 --output rotated.pdf
9. Extract images from a PDF
nano-pdf extract-images input.pdf --output ./images/
Examples
"Merge contract.pdf and appendix.pdf into one file"
→ Use step 2: nano-pdf merge contract.pdf appendix.pdf --output final_contract.pdf
"Compress this 50MB report so I can email it"
→ Use step 4 with --level high to aggressively reduce size.
"Split the quarterly report — I only need pages 10 to 15"
→ Use step 3 with --pages 10-15.
Cautions
- nano-pdf preserves PDF/A compliance when the input is already PDF/A — check if needed for legal documents
- Aggressive compression (
--level high) reduces image resolution — not suitable for print-quality output
- Encrypted or password-protected PDFs cannot be processed without first removing the password
- Very large PDFs (> 200 MB) may require chunked processing — split first, process, then merge
- nano-pdf is a Python package — confirm it is installed before use (
pip show nano-pdf)