How to interpret / diagnose pdftk error message

Question

Context: Catalina (zsh is default)

The drop and drag instructions were followed per: http://hildstrom.com/projects/2011/08/bates-number-a-pdf/index.html#mac

Attempts to follow the procedure first returned:

Terminal then returned:

ctivityReport.pdf"; exit
user@JUPITER ~ % '/private/var/folders/5s/5j5833_j41q5jw5qg42h3h6w0000gn/T/AppTranslocation/596EF513-EE76-40D6-A64E-E9667AEAF23F/d/bates-label-a-pdf.app/'../bates-label-a-pdf.sh "/Users/user/Desktop/Exhibits_ActivityReport.pdf"; exit
zsh: no such file or directory: /private/var/folders/5s/5j5833_j41q5jw5qg42h3h6w0000gn/T/AppTranslocation/596EF513-EE76-40D6-A64E-E9667AEAF23F/d/bates-label-a-pdf.app/../bates-label-a-pdf.sh

[Process completed]

The goal is to understand why the procedure did not return the expected .pdf file and any actionable remedy. I suspect that there may be a security setting that may need to be configured. Thank you

PION test results

per pion's instructions to overcome the AppTranslocation issue:

user@JUPITER bates-label-a-pdf % xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf

CPU = Intel i3770 (not M1). Execution returned Bad CPU type in executable errors:

user@JUPITER ~ % '/Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app/'../bates-label-a-pdf.sh "/Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/Exhibits_ActivityReport.pdf"; exit
/Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app/../bates-label-a-pdf.sh: line 18: /Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app/../pdftk/bin/pdftk: Bad CPU type in executable
/Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app/../bates-label-a-pdf.sh: line 21: /Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app/../labeling/generate-labeling-pdf: Bad CPU type in executable
/Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app/../bates-label-a-pdf.sh: line 22: /Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app/../pdftk/bin/pdftk: Bad CPU type in executable
mv: /Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app/../labeling/labeling.pdf-compressed: No such file or directory
/Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app/../bates-label-a-pdf.sh: line 26: /Users/user/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app/../pdftk/bin/pdftk: Bad CPU type in executable

Answer 1

tl;dr: App Translocation.

The Bates Label solution that you linked was written for macOS 10.7-10.8. In macOS 10.12 Apple began restricting non-Mac App Store apps from running unsigned code. Instead, macOS will create a random disk image, copy the application onto it, and execute the app from that image. Any external resources that the app depends upon are not copied, so if the app expects them to be found at a path that's relative to the app's original binary, you will see "file not found" errors.

That's what appears to be happening in your case. Here is the sequence:

1. You downloaded and unzipped a tarball containing bates-label-a-pdf.app, an unsigned app.
2. When you attempted to run that app, macOS translocated it to a random path (/private/var/folders/5s/5j5833_j41q5jw5qg42h3h6w0000gn/T/AppTranslocation/596EF513-EE76-40D6-A64E-E9667AEAF23F/d/bates-label-a-pdf.app/).
3. The app seems to be a wrapper for the bates-label-a-pdf.sh script, which the app was expecting to be found in the same directory as the app itself, hence the ../bates-label-a-pdf.sh relative path specification.
4. Since macOS did not copy the external shell script when it translocated the app, the app can't find it, and you get your "no such file or directory" message.

One workaround is to remove the com.apple.quarantine extended filesystem attribute from the app before running it. I explain this in longer form in Should I enter this command in Terminal?. The command in your case would be:

xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /path/to/app/location

where you would replace /path/to/app/location with the actual filesystem path to bates-label-a-pdf.app, wherever you put it. (According to the author's web page, that is supposed to be ~/Desktop/bates-label-a-pdf/bates-label-a-pdf.app but it's possible that you left it inside your Downloads folder instead.)

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If you're curious, here is the script code inside the app: