Shuffle is a simple script that reorders pages of a PDF such that it is easier to print with multiple pages on a sheet, with the intention of cutting the printed pages and forming it into a mini book.

A preset layout for 4 pages on one side of a sheet is included in the script. Besides keeping track of front and back of each page, it also ensures reordering the pages leaves sufficient margin for binding the pages into book form when you cut each printed page into 4 mini pages.

I typically use it to print out camera manuals, which I then bind and carry around in my backpack. The last such manual has survived about six years without any significant damage 🙃

Both the Python 🐍 and shell script uses qpdf. The Python script additionally uses the Python binding pikepdf, and the shell script depends on LaTeX to generate blank pages for padding.

If you are using the shell script version, there is a Makefile that you can use to generate the blank page conveniently. You can override the default LaTeX binary by overriding the LATEX variable in the Makefile:

$ LATEX=/opt/texlive/2020/bin/x86_64-linux/xelatex make blank.pdf

For now only ISO paper sizes from the A and B series are supported. As it is quite common, the Japanese variation of the B series should also be included, but I could not find the paper size dimensions in PDF units (points).

Even though sizes larger than A4 do not really make sense for my use case, I have left them in, because who knows how some other use case might crop up for this tool.

In the archive directory you can find an older shell script that does the same, but requires a bit of fiddling. It also relies on LaTeX to insert blank pages where needed.

The image is licensend under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license, thanks to Wikimedia Commons.