[lug] Combining pdf documents

[Ed Hill]

On Fri, 2003-01-10 at 11:27, Peter Hutnick wrote:
> 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.


Oh, ick!

LaTeX is wonderful and definitely my favorite environment for producing
papers, but if all you want to do is append 2+ PDF documents then LaTeX
is NOT the tool for the job.  Instead, try:

  1) convert pdf -> ps using, for example, acroread's to "print to 
       a file" functionality

  2) psmerge the ps files

  3) run ps2pdf to generate the pdf

  4) done!

And good luck as not all PS files follow the Adobe Document Structuring
Conventions.

Ed   

-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD 
Post-Doctoral Researcher   |  Email:  ed at eh3.com,  ehill at mines.edu
Division of ESE            |  URLs:   http://www.eh3.com
Colorado School of Mines   |    http://cesep.mines.edu/people/hill.htm
Golden, CO  80401          |  Phones:  303-384-2094, 303-273-3483
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