remove-edrolo-thing.md

Don’t like the

This document is intended for <student name> at <school> (user ID: <id>). Unauthorised circulation in any form is not permitted.

at the bottom of each page of an Edrolo PDF textbook?

Use this script!

• Install Python 3
• pip install pikepdf
• python3 remove-edrolo-thing.py input.pdf output.pdf

This script worked using Python v3.9.7 and pikepdf v5.1.0.

Works with

• Physics 3&4 2nd ed.
• Biology 3&4 2nd ed.

Other textbooks may or may not work.

remove-edrolo-thing.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import sys
from pikepdf import Pdf

def remove_edrolo_thing(input_file: str, output_file: str):
    with Pdf.open(input_file) as pdf:
        for page in pdf.pages:
            # page.Contents[-1].read_bytes() is something like
            # b' Q\nq\nq 0.99987 0 0 0.99987 0.17688 0 cm /Xi9 Do Q\nQ\n'
            # or
            # b' Q\nq\nq 0.99987 0 0 0.99987 0.17688 0 cm /Xi791 Do Q\nQ\n'
            del page.Resources.XObject[page.Contents[-1].read_bytes()[40:-8]]
            del page.Contents[-1]
        pdf.save(output_file)

remove_edrolo_thing(sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2])