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Rearrange PDF pages via CLI

Ghostscript PageList only accepts increasing pages, so extract runs and merge them in the new order.

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Packages to install

Use ghostscript. Extract each increasing run, then pass the parts to gs in the order you want.

ghostscript
apt install
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ghostscript

How to run the command

PageList=3,1,2,4 is rejected. Extract page 3, then 1-2, then 4, and merge: gs ... -sOutputFile=reordered.pdf p3.pdf p1-2.pdf p4.pdf.

gs
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=3 -sOutputFile=p3.pdf input.pdf
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=1-2 -sOutputFile=p1-2.pdf input.pdf
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=4 -sOutputFile=p4.pdf input.pdf
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sOutputFile=reordered.pdf p3.pdf p1-2.pdf p4.pdf

Dockerfile example

Build a minimal Ubuntu image with the required packages and run the conversion inside the container.

Dockerfile
FROM ubuntu:24.04

RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
        ghostscript && \
    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

WORKDIR /work
docker build && docker run
docker build -t rearrange-pdf .
docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/work" -w /work rearrange-pdf \
  gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=3 -sOutputFile=p3.pdf input.pdf

Example commands

Run these locally after installing the packages, or inside the container from the Dockerfile.

Example 1
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=3 -sOutputFile=p3.pdf input.pdf
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=1-2 -sOutputFile=p1-2.pdf input.pdf
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=4 -sOutputFile=p4.pdf input.pdf
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sOutputFile=reordered.pdf p3.pdf p1-2.pdf p4.pdf
Example 2
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=4 -sOutputFile=p4.pdf input.pdf
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=3 -sOutputFile=p3.pdf input.pdf
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=2 -sOutputFile=p2.pdf input.pdf
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sPageList=1 -sOutputFile=p1.pdf input.pdf
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sOutputFile=reversed.pdf p4.pdf p3.pdf p2.pdf p1.pdf