pdf2side is a simple script that transforms your PDF documents—be it lecture notes, research papers, or books—into a 2-up layout specifically designed for enhanced note-taking.
The script rearranges your PDF so that each page of the output displays the original PDF content on the left side and a dedicated blank space on the right. This layout is suitable for importing into note-taking applications like GoodNotes, Notability, or other similar platforms, allowing you to write, draw, or annotate directly alongside the source material.
| Input PDF (Any Size) | Output PDF (A4 Landscape) |
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Ensure that the gs (Ghostscript), qpdf, and bc commands are available in your system's PATH.
Install ghostscript and qpdf from your distribution's package manager.
You might also need to install bc.
brew install ghostscript qpdfSimply run pdf2side abc.pdf to generate abc_side.pdf for note-taking.
pdf2side [--no-grid] [--no-group] [--extra-interleaved] src.pdf [out.pdf]
Use a clean white background instead of a grid paper background.
Without --no-grid |
With --no-grid |
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Instead of grouping multiple pages to fit the size, ensure each output page contains only one original page.
Without --no-group |
With --no-group |
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After generating the initial output, this option adds extra blank pages between each existing page. This is particularly useful for creating additional note-taking space.
This project is distributed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more information.
The example slides used in this documentation are from pmichaillat/latex-presentation.