[lug] Combining pdf documents

[Peter Hutnick]

J. Wayde Allen said:
>
> I need to combine a number of pdf papers into a single document.  I'm
> wondering how best to do that?  Can I do this using LaTeX?  If so how?
> Additionally I need to add some preface material and update page
> numbering.

There really isn't a rational way to go from an arbitrary PDF to LaTeX. 
(You could write a filter that is based on a bunch of assumptions that
would be pretty good at converting a restricted class of documents into a
particular LaTeX style . . .)

Your best bet is to use ps2ascii (it can take PDFs for input) and cat all
the texts together.  Then you could manually LaTeXify it.  If it is very
voluminous you could do some automated formatting for the most tedious
stuff.

I love what LaTeX can do, but I find using it nightmarish.  I find LyX
(http://www.lyx.org) to be an acceptable compromise.

Good Luck!

-Peter