[Rename PDFs by Title] Rename a directory of PDF files by their title as reported by `pdfinfo`. #tags: bash, pdf

Rename PDFs by Title.md

Rename PDFs by Title.md

Rename a directory of PDF files by their title as reported by pdfinfo.

Bash script

#!/bin/bash
# Rename all PDFs in current dir to their title as reported by `pdfinfo`

mkdir -p "renamed"
mkdir -p "skipped"

for file in *.pdf
do
    # Extract title, strip leading and trailing whitespace
    PDFTITLE=$(pdfinfo ${file} |  awk -F':' '$1=="Title" {print $2}' | xargs)

    if [ -z "$PDFTITLE" ]
    then
        echo "Skipping $file (title missing)"
        cp $file skipped/
    else
        echo "${PDFTITLE}.pdf"
        cp $file "renamed/${PDFTITLE}.pdf"
    fi
done

Alternate whitespace stripping

pdfinfo ${file} |  awk -F':' '$1=="Title" {print $2}' | sed -e 's/^[[:space:]]*//' -e 's/[[:space:]]*$//'

Links

• How can I process multi-line records with awk in a bash script? - Ask Ubuntu
• awk / cut: Skip First Two Fields and Print the Rest of Line - nixCraft
• string - How to trim whitespace from a Bash variable? - Stack Overflow
• Bash Shell Find Out If a Variable Is Empty Or Not - nixCraft

rename_pdfs.sh

#!/bin/bash
# Rename all PDFs in current dir to their title as reported by `pdfinfo`

mkdir -p "renamed"
mkdir -p "skipped"

for file in *.pdf
do
    # Extract title, strip leading and trailing whitespace
    PDFTITLE=$(pdfinfo ${file} |  awk -F':' '$1=="Title" {print $2}' | xargs)

    if [ -z "$PDFTITLE" ]
    then
        echo "Skipping $file (title missing)"
        cp $file skipped/
    else
        echo "${PDFTITLE}.pdf"
        cp $file "renamed/${PDFTITLE}.pdf"
    fi
done