pdfScale.sh

Bash Script to scale PDFs from the command line.
Uses ghostscript to create a scaled version of the pdf input.
The “paper” size does not change, just the elements are resized.

Dependencies

apt-get

sudo apt-get install imagemagick ghostscript bc

yum

sudo yum install imagemagick ghostscript bc

homebrew MacOS

brew install imagemagick ghostscript

Help info

pdfScale.sh v1.0.4

Usage: ./pdfScale.sh [-v] [-s <factor>] <inFile.pdf> [outfile.pdf]
       ./pdfScale.sh -h
       ./pdfScale.sh -V

Parameters:
 -v          Verbose mode, prints extra information
 -h          Print this help to screen and exits
 -V          Prints version to screen and exits
 -s <factor> Changes the scaling factor, defaults to 0.95
             MUST be a number bigger than zero. 
             Eg. -s 0.8 for 80% of the original size 

Notes:
 - Options must be passed before the file names to be parsed
 - The output filename is optional. If no file name is passed
   the output file will have the same name/destination of the
   input file, with .SCALED.pdf at the end (instead of just .pdf)
 - Having the extension .pdf on the output file name is optional,
   it will be added if not present
 - Should handle file names with spaces without problems
 - The scaling is centered and using a scale bigger than 1 may
   result on cropping parts of the pdf.

Examples:
 pdfScale myPdfFile.pdf
 pdfScale myPdfFile.pdf myScaledPdf
 pdfScale -v myPdfFile.pdf
 pdfScale -s 0.85 myPdfFile.pdf myScaledPdf.pdf
 pdfScale -v -s 0.7 myPdfFile.pdf
 pdfScale -h

System Install

Please note that the system installer will name the executable as pdfscale with no uppercase chars and without the .sh extension.

If you have make installed you can use it to install to usr/local/bin/pdfscale with:
sudo make install

The you can remove the script with
sudo make uninstall