cutpdf

#!/usr/bin/env bash

die() { printf %s "${@+$@$'\n'}" 1>&2 ; exit 1 ; }
see() ( { set -x; } 2>/dev/null ; "$@" ) ;

qpdf="qpdf.ai"  # AppImage version "installed" to get latest release from https://github.com/qpdf/qpdf/releases/
qpdf="qpdf"     # apt-installed version

command -v "$qpdf" > /dev/null || die "$qpdf needs to be installed"

do1file() (
   fullname="$1" ; shift
   test -f "$fullname" || die "not a file: $fullname"
   dirname="$(dirname -- "${fullname}")"    # ; echo "dirname   $dirname"
   filename="$(basename -- "${fullname}")"  # ; echo "filename  $filename"
   extension="${filename##*.}"              # ; echo "extension $extension"
   basename="${filename%.*}"                # ; echo "basename  $basename"
   # logical parameters:
   outfnm="$dirname/${basename}_cut.pdf"
   echo "fullname=$fullname"
   echo "outfnm=$outfnm"
   see "$qpdf" "$fullname" --pages . "$@" -- "$outfnm" || die "$qpdf [$outfnm] failed"
   )

do1file "$@"