Hide navigation sidebar
Hide table of contents sidebar
Skip to content
Back to top
View this page
Toggle table of contents sidebar
Find #mupdf on Discord
Do you have any feedback on this page?

# mutool clean

The `clean` command pretty prints and rewrites the syntax of a PDF file. It can be used to repair broken files, expand compressed streams, filter out a range of pages, etc.

    mutool clean [options] input.pdf [output.pdf] [pages]

Note

Command line parameters within square brackets `[]` are optional.

`[options]`

  Options are as follows:

  > `-p` password

  >   Use the specified password if the file is encrypted.

  > `-g`

  >   Garbage collect unused objects.

  > `-gg`

  >   In addition to `-g` compact xref table.

  > `-ggg`

  >   In addition to `-gg` merge duplicate objects.

  > `-gggg`

  >   In addition to `-ggg` check streams for duplication.

  > `-l`

  >   Linearize PDF.

  > `-D`

  >   Save file without encryption.

  > `-E` encryption

  >   Save file with new encryption (`rc4-40`, `rc4-128`, `aes-128`, or `aes-256`).

  > `-O` owner_password

  >   Owner password (only if encrypting).

  > `-U` user_password

  >   User password (only if encrypting).

  > `-P` permission

  >   Permission flags (only if encrypting).

  > `-a`

  >   ASCII hex encode binary streams.

  > `-d`

  >   Decompress streams.

  > `-z`

  >   Deflate uncompressed streams.

  > `-f`

  >   Compress font streams.

  > `-i`

  >   Compress image streams.

  > `-c`

  >   Clean content streams.

  > `-s`

  >   Sanitize content streams.

  > `-A`

  >   Create appearance streams for annotations.

  > `-AA`

  >   Recreate appearance streams for annotations.

  > `-m`

  >   Preserve metadata.

`input.pdf`

  Input file name. Must be a PDF file.

`[output.pdf]`

  The output file. Must be a PDF file.

  Note

  If no output file is specified, it will write the cleaned PDF to “out.pdf” in the current directory.

`[pages]`

  Comma separated list of page numbers and ranges (for example: 1,5,10-15,20-N), where the character N denotes the last page. If no pages are specified, then all pages will be included.

Do you have any feedback on this page?

This software is provided AS-IS with no warranty, either express or implied. This software is distributed under license and may not be copied, modified or distributed except as expressly authorized under the terms of that license. Refer to licensing information at artifex.com or contact Artifex Software, Inc., 39 Mesa Street, Suite 108A, San Francisco, CA 94129, USA, for further information.