There are countless questions and answers that present different solutions to merge 2 or more PDF files and how to extract specific pages and create a PDF with this subset.

Unfortunately I could not find a way (either using a library or command line tools, since it will be scripted) to merge files, such that the resulting file is a valid PDF and later "split back" this file in separate files, using the same page ranges, to obtain the exact same original files (at the binary level).

Is this possible?

CodePudding user response：

Once you merged the PDF files you cannot split the result and obtain the exact same original files at binary level. Source PDF files are not included as opaque binaries blocks in the merged file.

One possible solution solution, as @mkl said, is to use a PDF portfolio to embed the source files as they are. When viewing the portfolio you will see each file as it is, not as a long merged PDF file.