PDF

merging PDF files using GhostScript

to merge several files file1.pdf, file2.pdf, … into a single output.pdf file, use

gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOUTPUTFILE=output.pdf -dBATCH file1.pdf file2.pdf ...

the -dNOPAUSE simply means that gs won't stop along the way to ask you questions, like "do you want to continue?"

cutting PDF files using GhostScript

to get only pages 50-60 of a document, use

gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=my_cut_file.pdf -dFirstPage=50 -dLastPage=60 -dBATCH my_file.pdf

converting to PDF using GhostScript

you can convert a vast array of documents into PDF using gs; to convert PostScript to PDF, use

gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOUTPUTFILE=output.pdf -dBATCH my_file.ps

GhostScript actually supports an incredible array of formats; to check what all you can work with, just run

echo 'devicenames == ' | gs -q | tr " " "\n" | sort