pdftosrc(1) General Commands Manual pdftosrc(1)
NAME
pdftosrc - extract source file or stream from PDF file
SYNOPSIS
pdftosrc PDF-file [stream-object-number]
DESCRIPTION
If only PDF-file is given as argument, pdftosrc extracts the embedded
source file from the first found stream object with /Type /SourceFile
within the PDF-file and writes it to a file with the name /SourceName
as defined in that PDF stream object (see application example below).
If both PDF-file and stream-object-number are given as arguments, and
stream-object-number is positive, pdftosrc extracts and uncompresses
the PDF stream of the object given by its stream-object-number from the
PDF-file and writes it to a file named PDF-file.stream-object-number
with the ending .pdf or .PDF stripped from the original PDF-file name.
A special case is related to XRef object streams that are part of the
PDF standard from PDF-1.5 onward: If stream-object-number equals -1,
then pdftosrc decompresses the XRef stream from the PDF file and writes
it in human-readable PDF cross-reference table format to a file named
PDF-file.xref (these XRef streams cannot be extracted just by giving
their object number).
In any case, an existing file with the output file name will be
overwritten.
Notes
An embedded source file is written unchanged, i.e., it will not be
uncompressed.
Only the stream of the object will be written, i.e., not the dictionary
of that object.
Knowing which stream-object-number to query requires information about
the PDF file that has to be gained elsewhere, e.g., by looking into the
PDF file with an editor or dumping it with a utility.
The stream extraction capabilities of pdftosrc (regarding known PDF
versions and filter types, for instance) follow the capabilities of the
underlying xpdf program version.
Currently the generation number of the stream object is not supported.
The default value 0 (zero) is taken.
The wording stream-object-number has nothing to do with the `object
streams' introduced by the Adobe PDF Reference, 5th edition, version
1.6.
EXAMPLES
An external file, say myfile.zip, can be embedded into a file foo.pdf
by using pdfTeX primitives, as illustrated by the following example:
\immediate\pdfobj
stream attr {/Type /SourceFile /SourceName (myfile.zip)}
file{myfile.zip} \pdfcatalog{/SourceObject
\the\pdflastobj\space 0 R}
Then myfile.zip can be extracted from foo.pdf by calling "pdftosrc
foo.pdf".
OPTIONS
None.
ENVIRONMENT
None.
DIAGNOSTICS
If success, the exit code of pdftosrc is 0, else 1.
All messages go to stderr. At program invocation, pdftosrc issues the
current version number of the program xpdf, on which pdftosrc is based,
though it is maintained as part of pdfTeX.
When pdftosrc was successful with the output file writing, one of the
following messages will be issued:
Source file extracted to source-file-name
or
Stream object extracted to PDF-file.stream-object-number
or
Cross-reference table extracted to PDF-file.xref
When the object given by the stream-object-number does not contain a
stream, pdftosrc issues the following error message:
Not a Stream object
When the PDF-file can't be opened, the error message is:
Error: Couldn't open file 'PDF-file'.
When pdftosrc encounters an invalid PDF file, the error message
(several lines) is:
Error: May not be a PDF file (continuing anyway)
(more lines)
Invalid PDF file
There are other error messages from pdftosrc for various kinds of
broken PDF files.
BUGS
Not all embedded source files will be extracted, only the first one
found.
SEE ALSO
pdfimages(1), pdftex(1), pdftotext(1), xpdf(1).
AUTHORS
pdftosrc is part of pdfTeX was written by Han The Thanh, using xpdf
functionality from Derek Noonburg. Man page written by Hartmut Henkel.
Public discussion list for pdftosrc: https://lists.tug.org/pdftex
Web2C 2026 16 January 2026 pdftosrc(1)
texlive-bin 2026.78235 - Generated Thu Mar 5 16:03:41 CST 2026