IB Math Exam PDF Cleaner

Strips cover pages, instructions, and blank "do not write" pages from IB Math exam PDFs. Adds a small label (year, paper, TZ, level) to the first page for easy identification. Intended to save paper whilst printed.

Platform

Linux or WSL only. This is a Bash script — it does not work on macOS or Windows natively. Use WSL2 on Windows.

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Quick Start

# 1. Clone and set up
git clone https://github.com/fortnitemaster32/IB-Math-Exam-PDF-Cleaner.git
cd ib-math-exam-cleaner

# 2. Create virtual environment and install dependencies
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install pypdf reportlab

# 3. Drop your IB Math PDFs into this directory (or subdirectories)
#    The script scans recursively through all subdirectories

# 4. Run the script
./strip_intro.sh

Cleaned PDFs are saved to output/ — originals are never modified.

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What It Does

1. Recursively scans the current directory and all subdirectories for *.pdf files
2. Skips the first 2 pages (cover + instructions) — configurable
3. Detects and removes blank "do not write" pages
4. Skips markschemes and non-exam PDFs automatically
5. Adds a small label to the top-left of the first page (e.g., 2024 AA Paper 1 TZ1 HL)
6. Saves cleaned PDFs to output/ with year-based filenames

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Compatibility

Supported subjects:

Subject	Code
Analysis & Approaches	AA
Applications & Interpretation	AI
Mathematical Studies	MS
Further Mathematics	FM

Supported fields:

Field	Supported Values
Paper	1, 2, 3 (any number)
Timezone	TZ1, TZ2, TZ3 (any number)
Level	HL, SL
Language	French, Spanish (when present in filename)

The script handles any combination of the above. For example:

• Mathematics_analysis_and_approaches_paper_2_TZ3_SL.pdf
• Mathematics_applications_and_interpretation_paper_1_TZ2_HL.pdf
• Mathematics_analysis_and_approaches_paper_1__HL_French.pdf

What gets skipped:

• Markschemes — any PDF with "markscheme" in the filename (case-insensitive)
• Non-exam PDFs — files without "paper N" in the name
• Output directory — cleaned PDFs are not re-processed

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How question detection works:

A page is kept as a "question page" if it has >30 characters of text AND contains at least one of:

• A numbered question (e.g., 1. )
• Sub-questions (e.g., (a) , (b) )
• [Maximum mark: X]
• Action verbs: find, show, calculate, determine, evaluate, prove, solve, express, sketch, state, hence

Pages containing only "do not write" text (without actual questions) are correctly skipped because they lack question indicators.

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Usage

./strip_intro.sh [pages_to_remove]

Argument	Default	Description
pages_to_remove	2	Number of intro pages to skip from the start

Output: Cleaned PDFs are saved to output/ with year-based filenames:

output/
├── 2024_AA_Paper1_TZ1_HL_clean.pdf
├── 2024_AA_Paper1_HL_French_clean.pdf
├── 2021_AA_Paper2_TZ2_SL_clean.pdf
├── 2019_MS_Paper1_TZ1_clean.pdf
└── ...

Original files are never modified.

Example Run

$ rm -rf output && ./strip_intro.sh
 17 → 13 pages  Mathematics_analysis_and_approaches_paper_1_TZ1_HL.pdf
         (removed 2 blank page(s))
 17 → 12 pages  Mathematics/2024/Mathematics_analysis_and_approaches_paper_1__TZ1_HL.pdf
         (removed 2 blank page(s))
 17 → 14 pages  Mathematics/2021/Mathematics_analysis_and_approaches_paper_2__TZ1_HL.pdf
         (removed 2 blank page(s))
  6 →  4 pages  Mathematics/2024/Mathematics_analysis_and_approaches_paper_3__TZ1_HL.pdf

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Requirements

• Linux or WSL2 (this is a Bash script — does not work natively on macOS or Windows)
• Python 3.8+
• pypdf and reportlab libraries

Setup

# 1. Create a virtual environment
python3 -m venv .venv

# 2. Activate it
source .venv/bin/activate

# 3. Install dependencies
pip install pypdf reportlab

After that, drop your IB Math PDFs into the directory and run ./strip_intro.sh — the script auto-activates .venv if it exists.

Adding Your PDFs

Place your IB exam PDFs anywhere in the directory tree. The script scans recursively:

./
├── Mathematics_analysis_and_approaches_paper_1_TZ1_HL.pdf
├── Mathematics/
│   ├── 2024/
│   │   ├── Mathematics_analysis_and_approaches_paper_1__TZ1_HL.pdf
│   │   └── Mathematics_analysis_and_approaches_paper_1__HL_French.pdf
│   └── 2021/
│       └── Mathematics_analysis_and_approaches_paper_2__TZ1_HL.pdf

Markschemes and non-exam PDFs are automatically skipped.

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Note: This project was developed with the assistance of AI tools. This script was tested with AA papers on Linux only, your milage may vary.