Ordering of pages in large multi-page document

[Scott_Wicks@adobeforums.com]

How do you get Acrobat to acquire pages in a specific order?

In greater detail: if I have say 10 pdf documents that I want to insert as individual pages in a larger document, how do I get Acrobat to pick the pages up and insert them in a specific order, such as alphabetical order? Specifically, if I have 300 or 400 or more pdfs that have alphanumeric names such as ABC12345, or ABC12346, ABC12347 and so on, how do I get the pages to insert in the same order as the name would fall in a finder level directory? Right now Acrobat will acquire the documents as pages but it inserts them in a seemingly arbitrary order.

Why do we want to do this? We use hundreds of pdf documents in big pdx (index documents) as a search database for packaging assignments. For various reasons we now have to have the pages appear in a logical order, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 instead of 5, 3, 1, 4, 2, or whatever, we seem to have now control over this at all.

If we try to do the same thing with screen capture .png files we have the same problem. For instance, if there are 30 files called "Picture 1.png", "Picture 2.png" and so on, Acrobat will not sort the files out or put them in order, or prompt for any kind of decision from the user to do so.

So does anybody posting here know how to do this?

Hope we are explaining this adequately.

Any advice, help or instruction would be gratefully received.

Thanks in advance,

sw

[Larry_G._Schneider@adobeforums.com]

Scott,

Which version of Acrobat and OS are you using. This was a problem in Acro6 and earlier versions of OSX. It's a UNIX problem where to speedup the access files are accessed in time order, most recent first. It doesn't go to the folder and take them in order. I thought this was fixed in Acro7.

Larry

[Mark_Larsen@adobeforums.com]

Scott, I've moved to V7 of Acrobat now but when I used V6 I did a pretty basic AppleScript to do this for me. Don't know if you want to give it a try your welcome to it? It also creates bookmarks for the inserted pages based on the file naming. You can assemble PDF's from folders of single or multi page docs. I used it for single page to multi page docs then ran on folder of multi page docs to create chapters of bookmarks.

[Scott_Wicks@adobeforums.com]

Hello Larry and Mark,

My bad, should have listed that info.

Acrobat 7 Professional
OSX 10.4.8
Dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5

We get a different result every time.

sw

(Sure, I'd try your AppleScript out, very kind of you to offer.)

[Jon Bessant]

Use the Create PDF from Multiple option - this should lock your pages
into the position based upon the run list in the combine dialogue ...

Jon

[Mark_Larsen@adobeforums.com]

Scott, here is the code that I used to combine my projects if the suggestion offered by jon does not work for you (I have yet to test this in V7). A breif description of how I intended it to work. Point finder at folder of PDF's it opens the first then repeats through the rest inserting the pages at the end of document 1 then saves this PDF to the desktop. This process can be repeated to create seveal multi-page chapters if you like. Then place the multi-page docs in folder and run again this will then create a single file frrom the first document. The only part I was never able to work out and requires some manual intervention is the bookmarks of the first multi-page need selecting and moving into the first bookmark to make it a top-level bookmark like the rest. Hope it is of some use to you. Some additional notes at top of script you will need to check for file naming.

* ************************************************** *****************

-- Order your docs by number.name.pdf for example none alphabetical bookmarks
-- Your Bookmark is called what is between the 2 fullstops in the file name.
-- 001.Contents Page.pdf
-- 002.Zebras Page.pdf
-- 003.Lions Page.pdf
-- 004.Elephantnts Page.pdf
-- 005.Antelopes Page.pdf
-- 006.Hippos Page.pdf
-- 007.Index Page.pdf
-- To change the bookmark name to just use alphanumeric names set bookmark name to text item 1. (In the 3 places marked)
-- File name extensions are assumed.
--------------
set inputFolder to choose folder with prompt "Where is your folder of PDF files…" without invisibles
set filePath to (path to desktop from user domain) as string
--
tell application "Finder"
set filesList to files in inputFolder
set thePDFs to count of filesList -- Count the PDF's
set theFile to item 1 of filesList as alias
end tell
--
tell application "Acrobat 6.0.2 Professional"
activate
open theFile -- Open first PDF
set docRefA to the name of document 1
set bounds of document 1 to {48, 110, 600, 800} -- Set the view of first document
set view mode of document 1 to pages and bookmarks -- Watch the bookmarks fall in
--
set ASTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
set BookName to text item 2 of docRefA -- Set the bookmark name here! (1)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ASTID
--
set PageCount to count of pages of document docRefA
if PageCount = 1 then
tell document 1
make new bookmark at beginning with properties ¬
{destination page number:{PageCount}, fit type:fit page, name:BookName}
end tell
end if
if PageCount > 1 then
tell document 1
make new bookmark at beginning with properties ¬
{fit type:fit page, name:BookName}
end tell
end if
end tell
repeat with i from 2 to thePDFs
tell application "Finder"
set theFile to item i of filesList as alias
end tell
tell application "Acrobat 6.0.2 Professional"
activate
open theFile with invisible -- Open the next PDF
set docRefB to the name of document 2
--
set ASTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
set BookName to text item 2 of docRefB -- Set the bookmark name here! (2)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ASTID
--
set AddPages to count of pages of document docRefB
insert pages document docRefA after PageCount from document docRefB starting with 1 number of pages AddPages with insert bookmarks
if AddPages = 1 then
tell document 1
make new bookmark at end with properties ¬
{destination page number:{(PageCount + 1)}, fit type:fit page, name:BookName}
end tell
end if
close document 2 saving no
end tell
end repeat
--
tell application "Acrobat 6.0.2 Professional"
create thumbs document 1
-- Strip down the names of imported multi-page PDF's
repeat with j from 1 to (count of bookmarks)
set thisBookName to name of bookmark j as string
--
set ASTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
if (count of text items of thisBookName) > 1 then
set BookName to text item 2 of thisBookName -- Set the bookmark name here! (3)
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ASTID
set name of bookmark j to BookName
end if
--
end repeat
save document 1 to file ((filePath & ":" & docRefA) as string) with linearize
close document 1 saving no
end tell

[Scott_Wicks@adobeforums.com]

Hello Mark Larsen,

Thanks! We'll have a go with your script and see how it works for us. We appreciate your being gracious with this help.

sw

[Mark_Larsen@adobeforums.com]

Scott, not a problem. Just remember with anything like this always use duplicates of files for evaluation purposes. Hope it works for you as it does for me & saves you some time.