On Arch Linux, PDF Arranger is available from the official package repositories, and because Arch is a rolling-release distribution its package tends to be among the freshest of any distro. Installation is a single pacman command. This guide covers the install, a quick verification, and the honest version note that applies to every repository package — plus the Flatpak alternative if your mirror is behind.
Step 1: Install with pacman
Update your package database and install PDF Arranger in one go:
sudo pacman -S pdfarrangerpacman will pull in the runtime pieces PDF Arranger is built on — Python 3 with GTK 3 bindings, Poppler and pikepdf among them — and ask for confirmation before installing. Approve, and the program is ready. If it has been a while since your last full system update, run sudo pacman -Syu first, as partial upgrades are not supported on Arch.
Versions on a rolling release
Arch packages track upstream releases closely, so the repository build is usually recent — but the version you receive is still whatever the Arch repositories currently carry, and mirrors update at their own pace. To see exactly what is installed, run:
pacman -Qi pdfarrangerIf that reports 1.14.0, you have the current upstream release with its newest additions: single-page zoom fit, the A0, A1 and A2 paper sizes, rebuilt outlines on export, and odd/even page swapping. If it reports an older version, the everyday page tools — merge, split, reorder, rotate, crop and booklet generation — all work the same; you are only missing the newest refinements until the package updates.
What pacman installs is the complete working program, not a stub: the Python application itself, the pikepdf library that reads and writes the PDF structure, Poppler for rendering page previews, and the GTK 3 interface toolkit. That layering is worth knowing for troubleshooting — if the window opens but a PDF renders blank, the rendering layer is the suspect, while a failure to save points at the PDF-writing layer. In practice, a clean repository install on an up-to-date Arch system needs no further configuration at all: there is no licence key, no first-run wizard, and no background service.
Step 2: Launch and verify
Launch PDF Arranger from your application menu, or from the terminal:
pdfarrangerOpen a PDF, select a few pages, duplicate one and delete another, then export with File > Save As and reopen the result. Quick experiments like that confirm rendering, editing and saving are all functional.
Updating and removing
- Update: PDF Arranger updates with the rest of your system on
sudo pacman -Syu. - Remove:
sudo pacman -R pdfarrangerremoves the program while leaving its now-unneeded dependencies in place; add-Rsif you also want unused dependencies removed, and review the list before confirming. - AUR note: you do not need the AUR for the standard program — the repository package above is the straightforward route.
The Flatpak alternative
If your mirror lags, or you prefer sandboxed applications from Flathub, the verified Flatpak build is in sync with 1.14.0 and installs on Arch with the same commands as everywhere else. See our Flatpak install guide for the full walkthrough.