[lug] Combining pdf documents

[rm at fabula.de]

On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 09:32:24AM -0700, J. Wayde Allen wrote:
> 
> 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.

I assume your question implies that you don't want/can't use
Acrobat for that task (not the reader - inserting documents is
only available in the full version).
PDF is basically an object-tree format, everything is stored
as an object where things like pages are just a collection of
references to the text/image objects that are displayed on
the page (an object can be referenced/used on more than one
page - that can save a lot of storage space).
In theory it should be possible to combine pdf documents by
reading their dictionaries (the last object in a file - the
toplevel/root object so to say) and adding all object trees
to a newly created root object (but you would need to renumber
all objects to avoid duplicated object IDs). Doable, but most
likely not fun ....


hth   Ralf Mattes



> - Wayde
>   (wallen at its.bldrdoc.gov)
> 
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>                             ISART 2003
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