CheePDF, a simple PDF annotation remover

CheePDF is a lightweight and efficient Python tool to remove annotations from PDF files. It's ideal for cleaning up PDFs by stripping highlights and other markup. Features include:

• Remove highlight annotations from PDF files
• Create automatic backups of original files
• Get detailed information about annotations before removal
• Command-line interface for easy usage

Installation

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/chitvs/cheepdf.git
cd cheepdf

Using a virtual environment (recommended)

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

Note

On systems like Arch Linux or Debian, installing Python packages system-wide with pip may fail due to PEP 668. Using a virtual environment avoids these issues.

Quick start

Usage

Remove annotations from a PDF:

cheepdf input.pdf

Specify output file:

cheepdf input.pdf output.pdf

Get annotation information without removing them:

cheepdf input.pdf --info-only

Remove annotations without creating a backup:

cheepdf input.pdf --no-backup

Options

cheepdf <input.pdf> [output.pdf] [options]

Arguments:
  input.pdf     Path to the input PDF file
  output.pdf    Path to the output PDF file (optional, defaults to 'output_cleaned.pdf')

Options:
  --info-only   Display annotation information without removing them
  --no-backup   Skip creating a backup of the original file
  --help        Show this help message

Requirements

• Python
• PyMuPDF (fitz)

Acknowledgments

CheePDF is built using PyMuPDF for PDF processing.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 – see the LICENSE file for details.