{"slug": "qpdf", "name": "qpdf", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 3.344, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2026-01-10", "latest": "2026-01-26", "why": "the qpdf cli for occasional stranger (particularly encryption-related) things", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 4, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "the qpdf cli for occasional stranger (particularly encryption-related) things", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://qpdf.sourceforge.io", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["qpdf"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 748382769, "item_id": 46773923, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46773923", "by": "0xADD1E", "date": "2026-01-26", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the qpdf cli for occasional stranger (particularly encryption-related) things", "excerpt": "Between Okular for reading and quick edits, and the qpdf cli for occasional stranger (particularly encryption-related) things, I can\u2019t remember the last time I touched Acrobat. On macOS, Preview.app (with occasional qpdf) also works very well.", "context": "", "use_case": "encryption-related PDF tasks", "switched_from": "Adobe Acrobat", "story": "Ask HN: Is there a good open-source alternative to Adobe Acrobat?"}, {"id": 748243296, "item_id": 46765206, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46765206", "by": "reify", "date": "2026-01-26", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "On linux I use qpdf", "excerpt": "On linux I use qpdf example; to keep pages 1-9 and 26-end of the original file input.pdf and save them to outputfile.pdf: qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-9,26-z -- outputfile.pdf reduce pdf file size qpdf --compress-streams=y --recompress-flate --optimize-images 1.pdf 2.pdf converted a 16mb file to 1mb reduction qpdf --help Run \"qpdf --help=topic\" for help on a topic. Run \"qpdf --help=--option\" for help on an option. 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But you can use qpdf or PDFEdit to interpret a PDF's raw code. https://stackoverflow.com/a/6562443 And thus, you can compare the raw XLSX (XML) vs raw PDF.", "context": "", "use_case": "Inspect raw PDF structure", "switched_from": "", "story": "Take potentially dangerous PDFs, and convert them to safe PDFs"}, {"id": 745048448, "item_id": 46565528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46565528", "by": "alhirzel", "date": "2026-01-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "my needs are met by using `qpdf` to export QDF", "excerpt": "There needs to be better tooling for inspecting PDF documents. Right now, my needs are met by using `qpdf` to export QDF [1], but it is just begging for a GUI to wrap around it... 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