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MuPDF (mutool)

Fast C PDF library plus the mutool command-line suite.

Jobs Convert Merge Compress Sign Edit Protect

Operated by Artifex Software, Inc.

Visit MuPDF (mutool)

Opens the vendor's own site.

Jobs covered

Open a task to see exactly what the vendor documentation supports.

Convert Browse all convert tools

converting documents with mutool, where the mutool convert man page says the command converts a file from one format to another, infers the output format from the output filename or a -F format option, and supports page ranges and output options; the manual's output-option sections document raster formats cbz, png, pnm, pgm, ppm, pam, pbm and pkm, PCL, PCLm, PS and PWG print formats, SVG, HTML, XHTML, plain text and structured text, and the PDF output options document PDF output with compression, encryption, permissions and metadata controls.

The draw manual lists the input document formats as PDF, XPS, CBZ, Markdown and EPUB. The scope records the documented convert command and the documented output families, makes no Office conversion claim, no fidelity guarantee and no claim that every format pair is supported, because the manual documents the command and options rather than an exhaustive conversion matrix

Merge Browse all merge tools

merging documents with mutool, where the mutool merge man page documents picking pages from two or more files and merging them in order into a new PDF output file, with an output filename and optional PDF output options, and accepts page ranges for each input. The scope records the documented ordered page-level merge of two or more inputs into a new PDF and makes no claim about preserving signatures, forms, links or annotations across the merge

Compress Browse all compress tools

rewriting PDFs with image subsampling and recompression controls, including lossless, jpeg, j2k, fax and jbig2 methods

Sign Browse all sign tools

signing PDFs with mutool, where the mutool sign man page documents reading a PDF and printing information about each signature field, verifying all or specified signatures with -v, clearing all or specified signatures with -c, and signing with a certificate file and certificate password using -s and -P, with an output file. The scope records the documented certificate-based signature verification, clearing and creation workflow on signature fields, makes no certificate-authority issuance, trust-validation, timestamp or independent legal-validity guarantee, and does not claim a visual signature workflow

Edit Browse all edit tools

editing PDF structure with mutool, where the mutool clean man page documents pretty-printing and rewriting PDF syntax, repairing broken files, expanding compressed streams, filtering page ranges, garbage collection, object renumbering and deduplication, stream recompression, annotation appearance generation, metadata preservation and encryption changes; the create man page documents creating a new PDF from one or more graphics command files with page sizes, fonts and image resources; the pages man page documents page size and orientation information; and the run man page documents executing JavaScript with access to most MuPDF library features.

The scope records structural rewriting, page filtering, repair, PDF creation from graphics commands and JavaScript scripting, and makes no general text-editing, annotation-editing or point-and-click editor claim; the library and MuPDF.js surfaces are separate

Protect Browse all protect tools

protecting PDFs with mutool, where the mutool clean man page documents saving with an encryption method of rc4-40, rc4-128, aes-128 or aes-256, setting an owner password with -O, a user password with -U and permissions with -P, saving without encryption with -D, and using -p to open an encrypted input. The scope records the documented encryption, password and permission controls in the local command-line tool and makes no reader-enforcement, universal-compatibility or unbreakable-encryption guarantee

Where your files are processed

No server involved

Installed command-line binary and embeddable C library. Documents are read and written on the machine running it. That is a property of the library itself: what an application built with it does with your file depends on that application, not on this.

Architectural rather than a vendor claim: mutool is an installed binary and the MuPDF core is a library you link into your own program, so documents are read and written on the machine running it. There is no account and no hosted step.

What it does

MuPDF is a small, fast C library for viewing, converting and manipulating PDF, XPS, EPUB and other documents, and mutool is the command-line program bundled with it. The current stable release tag is 1.28.5, dated 25 September 2026.

The mutool command set includes convert, merge, clean, pages, create, draw, extract, sign, info, show, grep, bake, barcode, poster, recolor, trim, trace, audit and run. convert rewrites documents into PDF, raster image, PCL, PCLm, PS, PWG, SVG, HTML/XHTML, plain text or structured text output; merge picks pages from several files into one PDF; clean repairs and rewrites PDFs, filters pages, garbage-collects, recompresses streams and can encrypt or decrypt; create builds a PDF from graphics command files; pages reports page sizes and orientation; draw renders or extracts text and images; extract pulls images and fonts; sign verifies, clears or creates certificate-based signatures; and run executes JavaScript with access to the MuPDF library.

It is a scripting and embedding toolkit rather than a point-and-click editor, and it runs locally or in the caller's process with no vendor-hosted service.

Best for

Developers and technical users who want one fast, dependency-light engine they can drive from shell scripts, a C program, or a JavaScript, Java or Python binding.

Worth knowing

The current stable release tag is 1.28.5, dated 25 September 2026; the master version header says 1.29.0 development and is not a released version. MuPDF is AGPL-3.0-or-later or commercial from Artifex Software, Inc.; no commercial price is published and commercial licensing routes through Artifex sales.

It is a toolkit, not a rich graphical editor: there is no general content-editing command, and edit here means structural rewriting, page filtering, repair, creation from graphics commands and JavaScript scripting rather than text or annotation editing in a UI. There is no dedicated redaction subcommand in the mutool command list; permanent redaction exists in the MuPDF library and the MuPDF.js API, not in a mutool CLI workflow, and MuPDF.js has its own record in this index.

The draw command has OCR options for language and an OCR file path, but OCR is not a separate job in this record and no accuracy guarantee is made. The sign command can verify, clear or create certificate-based signatures using a certificate file and certificate password, but no certificate-authority issuance, trust-validation or timestamp guarantee is made.

The clean command can encrypt output with rc4-40, rc4-128, aes-128 or aes-256, set owner and user passwords and permissions, or decrypt with -D, but no reader-enforcement guarantee is made. Processing is local to the machine or the embedding application; there is no vendor-hosted surface, and no cloud, AI, fax or retention service is part of mutool.

Details, and where each comes from

Vendor statements, our own reading of their pages, and the things nobody has established yet, each answered separately. Where we have not confirmed something it says so rather than guessing, and a row nobody has established is greyed out.

Versions covered
Windows · macOS · Linux · API · Self-hosted
Website
mupdf.com
Requires an account
Not applicable
Watermark on the free tier
No
Maximum file size
Not verified
Batch processing
Yes
Data residency
Self-hosted
Open source
Yes
Self-hostable
Yes
Licence
AGPL-3.0-or-later or commercial.

AGPL-3.0-or-later or commercial. The MuPDF source headers and licence documentation say MuPDF is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 or later, and that a commercial licence is available from Artifex Software, Inc., 39 Mesa Street, Suite 108A, San Francisco, CA 94129, USA, for users who cannot comply with the AGPL.

The licence file says the software is provided as-is with no warranty and directs commercial enquiries to Artifex. No commercial price is published; pricing routes through Artifex sales.

The current stable release tag is 1.28.5, dated 25 September 2026, and the master branch version header is 1.29.0 development, which is not a released version. mutool is the command-line program bundled with the MuPDF C library; the library and the command-line tool are separate surfaces but share the same source and licence.

Redaction
Removes the content
Programmatic access
Embeddable library · Command line
Last availability check
Responded in 83 ms 21 October 2026

Checked automatically by our own runner, not reported by the vendor. 100% of our last 30 checks got a response.

What the redaction verdict rests on

From the vendor's own documentation, read 4 October 2026. Not tested by us.

“MuPDF documents redaction on its own PDFPage API, where a redaction annotation identifies an area whose content should be removed, and the options determine what happens to the images and text the area covers.”

What that does not establish

This is the MuPDF PDFPage API, which is reached through a binding, and it is not the same thing as a mutool subcommand: mutool’s overview lists a different collection of command-line operations. The record previously cited PyMuPDF’s Page documentation as the evidence for this whole entry, which named the wrong interface.

Content removal is a documented capability and independent redaction safety remains untested.

https://mupdf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/javascript/types/PDFPage.html

What the vendor says

Claims are labelled rather than repeated as fact. Where we have checked something ourselves, it says so and shows when. Checked means we read the vendor's own page and it says what we recorded - not that we tested the behaviour, unless the note says we did.

  • “MuPDF is the fast & powerful solution for managing PDF and other document formats.”

    Checked by us - the source says this Read 22 September 2026

    Confirmed verbatim: "MuPDF is the fast & powerful solution for managing PDF and other document formats." is the site's headline, unaltered. "Fast" and "powerful" are adjectives without a measurement, and the page offers none.

    This is the third Artifex property verified in this campaign and the fourth scan of the same vendor's material: Ghostscript's licensing page and headline, MuPDF's licence page, and MuPDF.js's README and FAQ. Read together they show a vendor whose licensing documentation is precise and whose product headlines are not - which is a pattern worth having in the index rather than four unrelated impressions.

    Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte

    Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
    Read
    https://mupdf.com/
    From
    the text a browser renders
    SHA-256
    a886bc54f5704a39fe00a09617a1a0fa8c724602fdeb40b63566c55ec7c76ea8

    How we checked

    Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://mupdf.com/ re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-mupdf-com-8eb78c36.txt.

    What this hash proves, and what it does not

  • “MuPDF is licensed under the GNU AGPL.”

    Checked by us - the source says this Read 22 September 2026

    Confirmed verbatim: the licence page says "MuPDF is licensed under the GNU AGPL." The page is short and unusually direct about the consequences, which are worth recording beside the claim: the AGPL "imposes many conditions on users, including the need to release the full source code for systems built with it", and a commercial licence is offered for "those users that cannot (or do not want to) comply". So the claim understates rather than overstates the obligation, which is the opposite of the usual direction of error in this index.

    Recorded as the vendor's description; no control was run.

    Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte

    Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
    Read
    https://mupdf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/license.html
    From
    the text a browser renders
    SHA-256
    b9e281570330ed43ffd97133560f538df4fc3e394c1d1a2561e77545f9cccd8e

    How we checked

    Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://mupdf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/license.html re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-mupdf-readthedocs-io-en-latest-license-html-8b9a38ad.txt.

    What this hash proves, and what it does not

Each claim is quoted from the vendor's own pages. This section describes what we have and have not checked - it is not a judgement about anyone.

Sponsorship is distribution, not an endorsement or a promise of search rankings, AI citations, traffic, or sales. This listing is a free entry, compiled from published sources.

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Related reading

How this record was put together

Editorial review.
No editor has signed this record off. That is not the same as nothing having been checked, and the lines below say what has.
Source reading.
2 claims taken from the vendor's own pages, read between 22 September 2026 and 22 September 2026.
Website availability.
The vendor's site was last checked on 21 October 2026.
Behaviour testing.
We ran this ourselves. The file handling was watched directly.

Sources: mupdf.com (home, releases); mupdf.readthedocs.io (what-is-mupdf, mutool, mutool-clean, mutool-sign, license, changes). Licence confirmed on the licence page and the releases page.