Multi-page document merging Adobe Acrobat Pro - pdf

We have a number of policies (about 150 or so) we make available for download on our webpage.
Recently, Management had us move from all policies residing in one PDF to one policy per PDF. Their reasoning was to make it easier for the end users to download the policy that they want, and to make it easier for us to replace them when they change.
Now, some end users are complaining that they want to download the whole set of policies as one large PDF. Maintaining both formats as independent documents not only doubles our work, but increases the likelihood of error.
Since these are changed often, what I would like to do is to build a script to instruct Adobe Acrobat Pro to combine these individual policy PDFs together in a specific order.
This doesn't have to be a scrip since a GUI method would also work.
Can this be done? If so, were can I look for examples?

Docotic.Pdf library can merge PDF files while maintaining outline (bookmarks) structure.
There is nothing special should be done. You just append all documents one after another and that's all.
using (PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument())
{
string[] filesToMerge = ...
foreach (string file in filesToMerge)
pdf.Append(file);
pdf.Save("merged.pdf");
}

Related

How to retrieve files in Domino Web documents to embed them instead of showing them as links?

I have a Notes app that was designed for the browser, not the client. It allowed upload of files into the documents, so nearly all the documents have files. The files are stored in the NSF as $FILE and displayed in the documents as links.
I am using Adobe Acrobat Pro to create PDFs from the documents and need to include the file attachments within the PDFs, however the PDFs just include links to the files, not the attachments. Can I write an agent to run against the documents to get those files and embed them within the documents? When I view those documents through the client, I see all of the HTML etc. and then at the bottom of the document, the file attachments appear. When I view these same documents in the browser, the file attachments do not appear. If I could merely ensure that they are there, then when running the PDF generator in Acrobat Pro, they would be included in the PDFs and executable.
I am really stuck here, with no other way to 'archive' this notes database with all the data intact.
Thanks in advance for any insights!!
Ginni
There is a commercial product from Swing Software that does this. I hear that it's quite good, but I've never used it. Let me explain why...
The way I usually end up doing this is just quick-and-dirty. I write an agent to export the files, using the document UNID as part of the filename. The same agent exports all the data fields from the document into a CSV file, and I add a column with the filename of the extracted attachment. In your case, I would add two columns -- one for the extracted attachment(s), and one for the generated PDF. The CSV serves as an index for the exported data. It can be imported into something more friendly, or just left as-is and brought up in Excel, depending on the customer's usage requirements and available systems. I've recommended Swing Software's product and offered to explore other ideas for developing code (e.g., using wkhtmltopdf for Domino web apps to capture a WYSIWYG rendering based on an HTML crawl) for PDF rendering of Notes documents for a couple of clients, but none of them have justified the cost that would be involved in buying licenses and/or writing the code. Quick and dirty always seems to win, even when there are retention and eDiscovery considerations taken into account.

Multi Page PDF merging with data file

We are trying to add a code to a multipage pdf file.
Let's say there's 1000 pages in the pdf file.
Every six pages corresponds to 1 account.
So those six pages need the same account number.
Then the following six would get a different account number.
ETC.
Has anyone ever run across something that would perform this function?
Can the pdf link to a data file, or would it have to use simple page numbering?
Thanks in advance!
You can programmatically add whatever you want to any subset of pages in a PDF using a variety of PDF librarys, commercial or OSS.
Can you be more specific?

advice on technology to use for document/form creation and indexing

My customer actually stores his documents, which are single page automotive forfeits, in a single MS Word document... this method is of course generating a huge file which is slow to open, not to talk about searches.
After a user compiles a document, he may need to print it to manually sign it. Then the document is scanned back and stored in PDF format. The document may be printed again to be
signed a second time by a manager. The doubly signed document is scanned again and saved
overwriting the singly-signed one.
The user wants to be able to search the document using a couple of search keys (the doc number and a sort of a SSN). That is the reason they are using a single file, to be able to search in the file using Word's search feature.
I have to propose an IT solution. I was thinking about giving them a software tool that:
reads a pdf form/template; the template rarely changes
shows the template on the screen and allows the user to input his variable fields in the form
some of the fields must be defined as searchable
the user saves only the form fields, not the whole pdf.
the sw is able to rebuild a document by coupling the template with the fields. I have to find a way to tie the template with the saved fields, so that the template can change (versioning) without breaking the old documents
the tool allows to search in multiple documents, using the defined search fields
the tool allows to print the document to manually sign it; this is the hard part. When the document is signed cannot be changed anymore, but if the document is simply scanned and coupled with the form/fields pdf, then I'll loose the benefits of only storing the data decoupled from the template. Should I only scan the signature and attach it to the document as an image?
What do you suggest to use?
Adobe XML Forms?
Adobe Forms Data Format?
An already existing software?
Other?
For the existing documents, I want allow the customer to import his huge MS Word file into the new system.
Thanks.
Sounds like you want a PDF form template that submits data to a dB that can be searched.
OTOH, if you just save the PDFs, Acrobat Pro can generate an index file from a directory, that can be searched (from reader?). Yep, you can run searches on an index from reader, but can only build them with Acrobat.
I prefer AcroForms to LiveCycle forms myself. There's a lot more software out there that works with 'em. If you go with LiveCycle, you're almost completely locked into Adobe. And Adobe server software is EXPENSIVE.

pdf files - add input fields with acrobat/livecycle but file is password protected

We have some government forms that we want to be able to fill from mysql database and print automatically with php script. I downloaded demo of Adobe Acrobat and LiveCycle Designer and started playing with it.
Only problem is that pdf files theat we use are locked with password. More specifically - document assembly page extraction, creation of template pages are not allowed.
What is best way to access pdf to add fields. Is there a way to "unlock" or re-import as pdf. As last resort I could probably scan documents and re-import
Depending on the volume and frequency, you may want to consider using the server-based piece of LiveCycle which would allow you to unlock, add data to, then re-lock the PDFs.
The LiveCycle Unlock Password Encrypted PDF operation can un-lock the PDF then you can use other operations.
You could create a process that takes a locked PDF and citizen ID as inputs, unlocks the PDF, runs a mySQL query, merges that data into the form, then re-locks it and outputs the modified PDF.
Hope that helps,
-John

How to check if PDF was modified

I have a PDF generated by 3rd party system. Using PDF editor or els software I have modified it.
Is it possible to detect if PDF file was modified, without original file?
I will add some more details.
There is no encryption and no signature features.
Document is created by IT system. User receives document and modifies it.
Is it possible to track that change somehow?
I thought that all these applications leaves some data in PDF header or somewhere encoded inside file and it is possible to check it. However properties showed by windows explorer shows nothing... so I was interested if there is something smarter than viewing properties/header in explorer.
The problem with this is that just opening the PDF on a Mac in Preview and hitting Command-S to save the file will replace both the Creation and Modification date to match the current date/time. So even the creation date will be wrong. Even novice users can unknowingly do this, so if you're trying to track someone who may be purposefully modifying the document, it may lead to a false positive.
What you're asking is just too easy to spoof and fool unfortunately.
You could always check the md5sum of the pdf file. I'm not sure what environment you are using but that should help get you started.
It's going to be rough without the original file unless there were security features like encryption or digital signatures applied to it, which it doesn't sound like there was. Do you have access to any information at all about the original file? A file size, creation date, any of the metadata, etc.?
If the tool used to modify the PDF is working according to the PDF spec then in the Info dictionary it should update ModDate but leave CreationDate alone. You may also see some non-zero generation numbers on the objects although it is just as possible that all the objects have been regenerated and will therefore be generation 0. The trial version of CosEdit will allow you to look at these 2 items.
If however the tool has been used to intentionally modify the PDF without leaving a trace then they would be spoofing those bits of data so they won't help you.
Are the users modifying the PDF using Acrobat? If so then what Danio mentioned above should work. Strictly speaking, modifying the PDF should change its ModDate or xmp:ModifyDate without changing its CreationDate. However not all tools adhere to this; quite a few simply leave all metadata untouched, so this method of checking isn't 100% reliable unless you know what PDF editor your users employ.
If the editor your users use does change ModDate or xmp:ModifyDate, then you should be able to see it in two places. One is when you open the document in Acrobat and hit Ctrl-D to view Document Properties. The Creation field and Modified field should have different timestamps. There may also be APIs that can be used to programmatically retrieve this metadata. The other way you can visualize it is to simply open the PDF in Notepad and search for the properties. Most of the document won't be human readable but these timestamps should be. If they do get changed appropriately, you can always parse for them in your application. Good luck!
If you're using Ubuntu linux 18.04 and using Document Viewer then, you can
click on File options (3 vertical line ellipsis)
click on Properties...
look for Created / Modified fields in the Properties pop up
Beware: A sufficiently knowledgeable user can manipulate the PDF contents without changing the Created and Modified time stamps in the PDF metadata and the file system.
You can use some tools to get the pdf file property.
I use pdfinfo, you can get many property of the file, and check it.
pdfinfo 58dcc41d01293.pdf
Author: worker
Creator: Microsoft® Word 2016
Producer: Microsoft® Word 2016
CreationDate: Sat Aug 24 16:02:29 2019
ModDate: Sat Aug 24 16:02:29 2019
Tagged: yes
UserProperties: no
Suspects: no
Form: none
JavaScript: no
Pages: 55
Encrypted: no
Page size: 841.92 x 595.32 pts (A4)
Page rot: 0
File size: 3346838 bytes
Optimized: no
PDF version: 1.7