July 25, 2004

7:11 PM

PDF question. I have a directory full of jpgs, each is a scanned page of a book and each is numbered sequentially (001.jpg, 002.jpg, 003.jpg ...). I want to convert it to a single document. I don't want to open the first image and then import and append each successive page. Is there a script to do this? I have both acrobat and ghostscript. Any pdf gurus here?
posted by Grod to (12 comments total)

man convert

Ok ok. What you want is imagemagik. I think that should do it. :-)
posted by shepd at 7:20 PM on July 25, 2004

Acrobat 6 Professional does this for you, at least on Mac OS X. Just drop all the files onto the Acrobat icon. Or, alternately, File -> Create PDF -> From Multiple Files...
posted by mdeatherage at 8:31 PM on July 25, 2004

If they're all in the same dir, just use "Insert pages" then select multiple files. In acrobat 5 it'll add the pages in the order they're selected. I can do this using Acro 5 on Windows.
posted by Salmonberry at 9:15 PM on July 25, 2004

Heck, they don't even have to be in the same directory in AP6. Just scoop'em up in the "browse" window; add, delete and reorder as you see fit. mdeatherage's instructions are valid in Windoze too.

Since this is really pretty straightforward, is it safe to assume that you're really asking how to do this from some *nix system? Or maybe you're using an old version of Acrobat?
posted by RavinDave at 9:31 PM on July 25, 2004

... maybe jpg2pdf ???

"jpg2pdf is a very flexible and powerful PERL5 program. It can convert a collection of jpeg images into a unique PDF."
posted by RavinDave at 9:37 PM on July 25, 2004

Just to add another option, you could write some XSL-FO (an xml format) and process through Apache Fop.
posted by holloway at 10:37 PM on July 25, 2004

Thanks everyone. The solution was so simple that I can't believe I asked. All I had to do was drag the first image to Acrobat then order the remaining images by name, select all, drag on top of the image I'd already opened in Acrobat, and select "insert after last page". Presto
Now, if people would just learn that jpg is a lousy format to save text in...

Also, I love how unnecessarily complex some of these solutions are.
posted by Grod at 10:54 PM on July 25, 2004

Yes, in OSX I just drop it on the icon. Or "make document from images."
posted by luriete at 11:50 AM on July 26, 2004

I know this won't be helpful at all, but I must register my possibly irrational loathing of the acrobat/PDF format.

It went from actually being useful back when platforms had issues talking to each other to just plain annoying, obfuscated, and bloaty in the space of a few years.

Now it's simply the format of choice of lazy designers, office workers, and bureaucratic fops everywhere.

I'm sick of seeing simple things like bus/rail timetables published *only* in PDF, frequently in non-machine readable formats or with useless restrictions.

What ever happened to plaintext in a nice table?
posted by loquacious at 1:34 PM on July 26, 2004

loquacious, fyi, this question was prompted because I have an entire book where each page is a .jpg. I don't feel like opening each file individually. This is for personal use and is not a design issue. Also, I agree with you, .pdf on the web is obnoxious.
posted by Grod at 2:27 PM on July 26, 2004

I've found that with the OS X psuedo pdf thingy, "preview" you can

1) open as pdf

2) print as pdf (which removes many restrictions)

3) open the new pdf

4) Print as postscript.

What I am trying to figure out is how to convert postscript to html in a relatively painless manner.
posted by mecran01 at 4:31 PM on July 26, 2004

mecran01: Postscript to HTML seems like a pretty difficult transition.

If you don't have pictures, maybe put the .ps on the web, let Google index it, and then "View as HTML"?
posted by tss at 5:15 PM on July 26, 2004