PDFsam Basic bundles its own JDK and keeps its tweaks on the wiki

Five page operations, and no command that starts any of them

Five things are named as the job of the program: extract pages, split, merge, mix and rotate. That is the entire feature list, and it belongs to one edition. The README calls this repository the official SCM repository for PDFsam Basic, a free and open source multi-platform application written in JavaFX. The README itself documents no command line, headless switch or batch entry point; for tuning it only links a wiki list of properties and arguments that can tweak PDFsam behavior, so check that list before planning an unattended job.

Since version 4 the jlinked JDK travels inside the application

Version 4 changed the deployment story. Since then PDFsam Basic ships as a self-contained application that bundles a jlinked JDK, so there is no separate Java runtime to arrange on the target machine. Version 3, by contrast, required a Java Runtime Environment 8 with JavaFX installed before it would run at all. Two details of the current scheme are missing from the README and both matter when you package the tool for other people: the JDK version inside the jlink image is never named, and the supported operating systems are not listed beyond the phrase multi-platform. Ask on the official site for the exact package formats and processor architectures before you promise a build to somebody else.

AGPL-3.0 on the current line, GPLv2 on the older builds

The license moved along with the major version. Since version 3 PDFsam Basic is open source under the GNU Affero General Public License, while the releases before it were released under GPLv2. That is a practical detail when you audit a machine: an old version 2 installer sitting on a shared workstation and a current v6.0.9 build carry different license text, and any review of your own product will run into the AGPL terms on code derived from the newer source. The README restates no obligations and grants no exception for shipping PDFsam Basic inside a larger closed tool, so read the AGPL text in the LICENSE file before you embed anything.

Thirteen modules under one pom.xml, with no module map

The top level is split into thirteen directories that read like a layer breakdown: pdfsam-basic, pdfsam-core, pdfsam-gui, pdfsam-ui-components, pdfsam-themes, pdfsam-fonts, pdfsam-i18n, pdfsam-model, pdfsam-persistence, pdfsam-service, pdfsam-tools, pdfsam-docs and pdfsam-test, with a single pom.xml above them. Not one of those responsibilities is written down, and there is no module map, no dependency diagram and no note about which module holds the merge code and which holds page extraction. A contributor has to infer the layering from directory names and then read compiler output to find the class behind the operation they want to change.

A clone gives you source and a pom.xml, never an installer

Nothing in this repository is a packaged application. A fresh copy is a source tree, a build descriptor and documentation folders, so the first thing you can do with it is read rather than run. The README sends you to pdfsam.org for the official site and to a Build-and-run guide on the project wiki for the build steps themselves, which puts the instructions that matter outside version control. That arrangement costs something: a wiki page can describe a build that no longer matches the tagged source, and nothing here tells you which of the two you are reading.

The top level of a clone looks like this:

.github/
.gitignore
CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE
README.md
pdfsam-basic/
pdfsam-core/
pdfsam-docs/
pdfsam-fonts/
pdfsam-gui/
pdfsam-i18n/
pdfsam-model/
pdfsam-persistence/
pdfsam-service/
pdfsam-test/
pdfsam-themes/
pdfsam-tools/
pdfsam-ui-components/
pom.xml
publiccode.yml

There is no shell script, no installer script and no launch command in that list, which is the shortest way to see that first run happens on the official site rather than in this tree.

Behavior tweaks live on a wiki page, not in the repository

One line carries more operational weight than its length suggests: a list of properties and arguments that can tweak PDFsam behavior sits on the wiki under Properties-and-arguments. Property names, accepted values and defaults are not listed in the README itself. The build instructions live on a wiki page for the same reason. If you need the same behavior on several machines, record the properties you set by hand, because the README does not list them.

Translations still point at the version 3 Launchpad project

Localization is handled off this host as well. The README points translators at translations.launchpad.net/pdfsam/pdfsam-v3, a project named for version 3, while the newest tags in the repository are v6.0.9 on 2026-10-30, v6.0.6 on 2026-10-02 and v6.0.5 on 2026-08-05. Nothing in the tree says which string sets the current line ships or how many languages are finished. For an Italian or German team that needs a localized window, the honest reading is that translation coverage for version 6 is undocumented here, so confirm the language list on the official site before scheduling the rollout around it.

Editorial conclusion

PDFsam Basic suits a person who opens PDFs by hand a few times a week and wants a desktop window with no separate Java setup. It does not suit a pipeline: there is no documented batch mode, and the list of properties that change behavior lives on a wiki page rather than in the README. Before committing, read the LICENSE file for the exact version you install, confirm the package formats on pdfsam.org, and check the Build-and-run wiki page against the tag you cloned.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. License: AGPL-3.0
2. Project website
3. README
4. Releases
5. torakiki/pdfsam on GitHub