Quick way of interleaving PDF files?

[Ian McCall]

Is there a way of taking two separate PDF files, and then merging them
together as interleaved pages?

Context: I now have an all-in-one printer thingy with an automatic
document feeder. It scans single-sided only. For scanning double sided
documents, I'm creating two PDFs - one would be page 1, 3, 5, 7 etc.
with the other being 2, 4, 6, 8 - and then manually merging them in
Preview. I'd like to automate this process if I can.


Cheers,
Ian
--
Check out Proto the album: <http://studioicm.com/proto/>

[Paul Sture]

On 2017-01-05, Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> wrote:
> Is there a way of taking two separate PDF files, and then merging them
> together as interleaved pages?
>
> Context: I now have an all-in-one printer thingy with an automatic
> document feeder. It scans single-sided only. For scanning double sided
> documents, I'm creating two PDFs - one would be page 1, 3, 5, 7 etc.
> with the other being 2, 4, 6, 8 - and then manually merging them in
> Preview. I'd like to automate this process if I can.

Interesting question. When I had a single sided scanner I used to use
Preview to drag and drop pages from one document to another, but that
quickly got tiresome for anything more than a few pages.

If you do an online search, it seems that all the world plus dog thinks
that merging multiple PDFs means appending one file to another.

Could Applescript do the job?

--
"History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme" -- Mark Twain

[Chris Ridd]

Automator has a "Combine PDF Pages" action:

Combine documents by appending or shuffling pages. The shuffle method
will add one page from each of the passed documents to the new document,
then proceed to take the next page from each passed document, until all
pages in the passed documents have been added to the new document.

--
Chris

[Ian McCall]

On 2017-01-05 19:24:45 +0000, Chris Ridd <chri...@mac.com> said:

> Automator has a "Combine PDF Pages" action:
>
> Combine documents by appending or shuffling pages. The shuffle method
> will add one page from each of the passed documents to the new
> document, then proceed to take the next page from each passed document,
> until all pages in the passed documents have been added to the new
> document.

That shuffling sounds promising. Will investigate - thanks.

[Chris Leuty]

On Thursday, 5 January 2017 18:50:44 UTC, Ian McCall wrote:
> Is there a way of taking two separate PDF files, and then merging them
> together as interleaved pages?
>
> Context: I now have an all-in-one printer thingy with an automatic
> document feeder. It scans single-sided only. For scanning double sided
> documents, I'm creating two PDFs - one would be page 1, 3, 5, 7 etc.
> with the other being 2, 4, 6, 8 - and then manually merging them in
> Preview. I'd like to automate this process if I can.

PDF Split and Merge: http://www.pdfsam.org

Isn't one file in reverse order? PDF SAM can fix that too.

[Sara Merriman]

In article <ed4ac58c-9119-4fa3...@googlegroups.com>,

Good choice - I forgot it conflates as well as splits. I've been using
it for years to split multi-page PDFs into singles. Never had an issue
with it.

[Ian McCall]

Not heard of this one before - thanks, will give it a try. Looks useful.

[ruthl...@gmail.com]

I'm not sure I understand, but if you have a scan of pages 1 and 2 together from laying a book down on a scanner, briss can chop that up and re-arrange it for you. https://sourceforge.net/projects/briss/

[Graham J]

The OP's request is completely clear.

I suggest investigating the capabilities of the scanner - several will
allow double-sided scanning from the ADF. For example:

https://files.support.epson.com/htmldocs/wfp4520/wfp4520ug/source/product_info/concepts/two-sided_print_scan_copy_fax_wp4540_4530.html

http://www.brother-usa.com/mfc/multifunction_with_duplex_scanning/

Otherwise set the scanner for manual feed and feed each sheet twice.
Clearly this would be very tedious.

Googling for "PDF Merge" brings up lots of online solutions, none of
which are well enough described to reveal whether they would meet the
OPs needs.

If this requirement is more than about once a year I suggest swapping
the printer/scanner for one that meets the need.

--
Graham J

[Sara Merriman]

In article <p3pq06$t2g$1...@dont-email.me>, Graham J <gra...@invalid.com>
wrote:

I use PDFSAM to split multi pages PDFs. I've just had a look its
options include 'Alternate Mix' and 'Merge/Extract'

The Basic version, which is what I use is free and very simple to use
<https://pdfsam.org>

[Bruce Horrocks]

Since the OP was made more than a year ago, he's probably done it by now
- even if by hand.

--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey
England
(bruce at scorecrow dot com)

[J. J. Lodder]

Right, not even on my server anymore, so a gurgle poster,
probably hit and run.

The obvious answer is: why scan to pdf to begin with?
Scanning to pdf is almost always a mistake.
(unless you really want single pages)

Just scan to a suitable image format, jpg for example,
and you get files named Scan0001, scan0002, and so on.
If needed these can easily assembled into a pdf
without doing anything by hand,

Jan

[Ian McCall]

On 2018-01-19 12:09:02 +0000, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) said:

> Right, not even on my server anymore, so a gurgle poster,
> probably hit and run.

It was me - I needed this one doing.

> The obvious answer is: why scan to pdf to begin with?
> Scanning to pdf is almost always a mistake.
> (unless you really want single pages)

Nope - pdf or tiff. Those are the standards.


> Just scan to a suitable image format, jpg for example,...

Never do this - never scan to a lossy format. Always scan to losses and
then convert as needed.


> ...and you get files named Scan0001, scan0002, and so on.

> If needed these can easily assembled into a pdf
> without doing anything by hand,

I was talking about a task of around ~3000 pages in scope - legal
documents. I just wanted to use the auto feeder on my scanner and walk
away whilst it happened (obviously I'd need to reload every so often).
Unfortunately the scanner isn't duplex, so I would then want to repeat
the task and autostich the resultant files together - one file would
have pages 1, 3, 5, 7 etc. and the other pages 2, 4, 6, 8 etc..

As it turns out, there's an Automator action for exactly that - worked fine.


Cheers,
Ian



--
Checkout Voix Sans Voix and Proto, the albums: <http://studioicm.com>,
stream at <http://ianmccall.bandcamp.com>

[Ian McCall]

On 2018-01-19 18:13:14 +0000, Ian McCall <i...@eruvia.org> said:

> Always scan to losses

Lossless!

[Paul Sture]

On 2018-01-19, J. J. Lodder <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:
> Bruce Horrocks <07....@scorecrow.com> wrote:
>
>> On 18/01/2018 02:18, ruthl...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > On Thursday, January 5, 2017 at 1:50:44 PM UTC-5, Ian McCall wrote:
>> >> Is there a way of taking two separate PDF files, and then merging them
>> >> together as interleaved pages?
>> >>
>> >> Context: I now have an all-in-one printer thingy with an automatic
>> >> document feeder. It scans single-sided only. For scanning double sided
>> >> documents, I'm creating two PDFs - one would be page 1, 3, 5, 7 etc.
>> >> with the other being 2, 4, 6, 8 - and then manually merging them in
>> >> Preview. I'd like to automate this process if I can.
>> >>
>> >>

[...]

>>
>> Since the OP was made more than a year ago, he's probably done it by now
>> - even if by hand.
>
> Right, not even on my server anymore, so a gurgle poster,
> probably hit and run.
>
> The obvious answer is: why scan to pdf to begin with?
> Scanning to pdf is almost always a mistake.
> (unless you really want single pages)

He's got an ADF. Using the software that came with my scanner, I scan
directly to multiple page PDF files. My scanner does do duplex,
fortunately.


--
As we've seen time and time again, the Internet of Things is
demonstrably as robust and secure as a kitten crossing a motorway.
-- Alistair Dabbs