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tiffsplit Command in Linux

Quiz

The tiffsplit command is used to split a multi-page TIFF file into individual single-page TIFF files. This is useful when processing, viewing, or converting specific pages independently. It is part of the libtiff utilities.

Here is a comprehensive guide to the options available with the tiffsplit command −

Installation of tiffsplit Command
Syntax of tiffsplit Command
Examples of tiffsplit Command in Linux

Installation of tiffsplit Command

The tiffsplit command is part of the libtiff-tools package in Linux. Make sure the package is installed before using the command. To install it on Ubuntu, Kali Linux, Raspberry Pi OS, Debian, and other Debian-based distributions, use the following command −

sudo apt install libtiff-tools

To install it on Arch Linux, use the command below −

sudo pacman -S libtiff

To install libtiff-tools on Fedora, use the following command −

sudo dnf install libtiff-devel

To verify the installation of the tiffsplit command, check its binary using the which command −

which tiffsplit

Syntax of tiffsplit Command

The syntax of the Linux tiffsplit command is as follows −

tiffsplit source.tiff [prefix]

In the above syntax, the source.tiff is the multi-page TIFF file to be split. The [prefix] is a custom prefix for naming the output files. If not specified, the default prefix is x.

Examples of tiffsplit Command in Linux

This section explores how to use the tiffsplit command in Linux with examples −

Splitting a Multi-page TIFF Image
Splitting a Multipage TIFF Image with a Custom Prefix
Getting Numeric File Names

Splitting a Multi-page TIFF Image

To split a multi-page TIFF image, use the tiffsplit command followed by a multipage TIFF file −

tiffsplit sample.tiff

The above command splits a TIFF file into several single-page TIFF files. Since no custom prefix was provided, the default prefix x is used as shown in the following output image −

The filenames xaaa, xaab, and so on are alphabetical counters, where xaaa represents the first page, xaab the second, and so on.

Splitting a Multipage TIFF Image with a Custom Prefix

To split a multi-page TIFF image with a custom prefix, use the tiffsplit command followed by a TIFF file and prefix −

tiffsplit sample.tiff page_

Getting Numeric File Names

The tiffsplit command does not support the numerical counter by default. However, the following script can be used to achieve the same result −

#!/bin/bash

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
echo "Usage: $0 input.tiff"
exit 1
fi

input_file="$1"
prefix="temp_"

tiffsplit "$input_file" "$prefix"

a=0
for f in ${prefix}*.tif; do
mv "$f" $(printf "page_%03d.tiff" $a)
a=$((a+1))
done

Conclusion

The tiffsplit command is a simple and effective tool for splitting multi-page TIFF files into individual single-page files. With a simple syntax and optional custom prefixes for output files, tiffsplit helps handle large TIFF documents by breaking them into manageable singlepage images for easier access, processing, or conversion.

In this tutorial, we covered the tiffsplit command, its installation, syntax, and usage in Linux with examples.

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