Here is my list:
- pdf -
pdftk - images -
imagemagickutilities - audio/video -
ffmpeg - documents -
libreoffice --headlessmode, alsopandoc - download files -
wgetandcurl, alsoytdlpfor youtube, reddit - cloud storage -
rclone
Here is my list:
- emacs -
emacs
Ah, so you use the EMACS operating system as well?
- emacs -
Rsync for moving files and backing up.
The ultimate it-just-works CLI tool.
Although I have never understood why it’s called
rsync, because you need to add--recursiveto make it actually sync a file tree, which is what it does best.I think
rsyncis short for remote syncAmazing!
- Resizing images: mogrify (part of the imagemagick suite)
- ffmpeg
- pdftk is king for rotating/cropping/appending pdfs
- LaTeX everything
- make/shell - to script/automate image and document editing
- pandoc is reasonably good for many things
- latex2rtf - to get plain text for word counts out of LaTeX source
- wc - word count, line count
- ispell -t - does spell check in the terminal. The -t is so that it’ll mostly ignore LaTeX commands in the source
I’m sure there’s more but I don’t memorize them, they kind of get remembered when I need them.
Your list looks like what I’d write anyway, so just commenting; ^ That.
syncthing to sync my files on all my devices
find -execis essential to process multiple files7zhandles wildcards inside afind -execso you can save 200 lines of sh compliancempvplays online media since it uses yt-dlphttps://github.com/WyattBlue/auto-editor - automatically editing video and audio by analyzing a variety of methods, most notably audio loudness
https://github.com/shssoichiro/oxipng, https://pngquant.org/ and https://github.com/RazrFalcon/svgcleaner for optimizing images
xournalfor fake form-filling on PDFs - ugly and unintuitive but gets the job doneimg2pdf- does what it says on the tinrangerfor managing files and launching stuff - not the coolest kid on the block but this is the single most impressive terminal app I have used in recent years, the key bindings and commands and defaults are so crazily intuitive that I hardly ever even need to consult the manual
If you use Firefox, it added pdf editing in since 106. I like it compared to xournal. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/106.0/releasenotes
Aria2c is the best downloader for large files. It also supports torrents.
I’d add:
- ghostscript - with some basic perl scripts, works great for pdf flattening/compressing, merging, splitting, adding bookmarks etc.
- poppler - pdfseparate, sometimes pdfunite
- zathura - pdf viewing
- feh - images
- sshfs - prefer it to rclone
- cheat
- emacs - org-mode, latex, dired/wdired, capture, eshell, vterm, tramp
- mc/midnight commander
Very similar to you. I do use
grammafor spellchecking. My most used app overall is probablypandoc. I use it to make all my docs and presentations for work.Do you create slides with it? Which input format do you use for that? I usually use LaTeX for slides but would be interested in an alternative.
You can also use ghostscript (
gs) or the image magickconvertwith PDF.I use
rsyncquite often andsshas well.I use:
qpdffor mucking around with pdfs, reordering, selecting pages, combining them, etc.ffmpegfor video and audio sicing and transcoding. Usually encompassing a command in a script because I forget the precise params every time ;pnvimfor anything like Markdown (which can be converted to other things like LaTeX or pdf or html, sometimes in multiple stages)imagemagickfor simple image conversion stuff.wgetfor downloads ^.^youtube-dloryt-dlpfor grabbing youtube stuff.
pdfcrop(commonly included with LaTeX) for cropping margins - it cuts the pdf down to its contents then adds a margin of your choosing, extremely useful for forcing academic papers to have consistent margins,pdfcrop --margins 72 *pdf here*will create a document with a ~1in margin all around (it uses bp as its units)vipsfor resizing/converting images - it’s a bit faster and lighter than imagemagick in my experience, although the main reason I use it instead of imagemagick is just because I like playing around with stuff I haven’t used before :) It has an officially supported python binding too
For me, it’s pretty much just app management via my package manager, some file management, and the big ones are using
neovimas a text editor andcmusas my primary music player (I also useemmsinemacssometimes)I use most of these that you listed, except that I don’t use office apps at all, and do all my documents using LaTeX in
neovim.Also, I have small helper scrips for pdf manipulation for tasks that I do regularly, like making my handwritten notes ready for printing at my office since I don’t like the algo my office printer uses to convert them to B&W. I also use
sejda-consolefor merging PDFs as it has nice options for manipulating TOC during the merge.Another nice utility is
ffpbwhich is basically a wrapper aroundffmpegthat gives it a nice progress bar.









