[?] More precise: Convert multi layer XCF file into multi page PDF file

[Fr@nk Stef@ni]

Hi all,

subject says it basically all: I imported a multi page PDF in
gimp, did some edits and saved it as multi layer XCF file. Now
I want to convert that multi layer XCF file back into a single
PDF file with multiple pages.

As it did not work out of Gimp with either "print to file" or
"save as", I tried Image Magick this way:

convert file.xcf file.pdf

where "file.xcf" has 7 text only layers (from imported PDF). The
conversion worked without errors or warnings but the resulting
file "file.pdf" got only the two last pages (page 6 and 7) in
reversed order (layer 7 as first page, layer 6 as second page).

Any help getting the conversion correct is greatly appreciated!

TIA,
Frank

[Michael Soibelman]

Fr@nk Stef@ni wrote:

Perhaps you can save the individual layers as tiff files and then cinvert
those to PDF ?? Take a looksy here:

http://wiki.panotools.org/Multi-Layer_TIFF_editing_with_the_Gimp

[Fr@nk Stef@ni]

Michael Soibelman schrieb:

> Perhaps you can save the individual layers as tiff files and then cinvert
> those to PDF ?? Take a looksy here:
>
> http://wiki.panotools.org/Multi-Layer_TIFF_editing_with_the_Gimp

Therer are 10s of layers, even over 100. It would be a pain
to save each layer out of Gimp individually. Do you know of
a plugin or tool to save each XCF layer as a separate TIFF image?

My source is a multi page PDF, mostly text which I want to edit
in Gimp and recreate a PDF afterwards. I guess, Hugin is not
the right tools for this?!

Frank

[Michael Soibelman]

Fr@nk Stef@ni wrote:

Look for the 'save-layers-tiff-24' link on the page linked to above and
install it. Save your separate layers as tiff images (make a folder
specifically for these files only !) using the plugin. Then use 'tiff2pdf'
to convert each tiff file to pdf. You could wright a simple script to run
this in a loop on each image in the folder. I tried this method and it
worked !!

So if you do this you will convert each layer in the original xcf file as a
tiff image. Then you convert each tiff image to pdf. You'll end up with
as many pdf images as you had layers in your xcf image and they should look
identical.

Now if on the other hand you don't need to save each layer separately you
could do either of these alternatives. Save the xcf image as either ps
(postscript) or tif (single layer) and allow gimp to merge the layers (will
not destroy the original image). If you convert to postscript use 'ps2pdf'
to convert to PDF. If you convert to tiff use 'tiff2pdf' to convert to
PDF.

Either way should work. You can of course merge PDF's together.

So save separately or save as a single layer and convert to PDF.

ps2pdf is part of package 'ghostscript-library' and tiff2pdf is part of
package 'tiff'. At least in Linux. For windows you can google for these.

P.S. I'm sure there are other tools and methods you can use but this is one
way. If you were a gimp plugin/script writter you could make this as
simple as '->Save as multilayer PDF'.....

[Fr@nk Stef@ni]

Michael,

thank you for your detailed information and great advice.
Sorrily, the day you wrote it, I left for a > 1 month travel
and thus couldn't reply earlier. After beeing back now, I will
check your proposals during the next 7-10 days.

Your advice is always well founded and helpfull!

Thanks,
Frank

[nega...@gmail.com]

No news about this subject?

Thanks

[rockout...@gmail.com]

I noticed when I tried to create a pdf, it comes up as a single page, but for a split second I can see all the background pages flicker. The file size is as bis as a multipage pdf document, is there still no way to directly export multi page pdf's from gimp.