Category: Tools

I have often found myself in a situation where I needed to scan several pages of a book – both odd and even.  However, I want my PDF file to only have one page from the book on each PDF page.  This post describes how to do this with Adobe Acrobat 9.5 under Windows 7.

Install Script to Duplicate all Pages of a PDF

Save the following code snipet to a file called DuplicateAll.js in the Acrobat folder that contains user defined scripts.  On Windows 7, this is:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\Javascripts

app.addMenuItem({
        cExec: "duplicate_all_pages();",
        cParent: "Edit",
        cName: "Duplicate all pages"
});

function duplicate_all_pages() {
        var r = this.getPageBox();
        var w = r[2] - r[0];
        var h = r[1] - r[3];
        var oldD = this;
        var newD = app.newDoc({ nWidth: w, nHeight: h });
        var path = oldD.path.replace(oldD.documentFileName,"");
        for(var p=oldD.numPages-1; p>=0; p--) {
                pageFile = path+"page_"+p+".pdf";
                oldD.extractPages({ cPath: pageFile, nStart: p });
                newD.insertPages({ cPath: pageFile, nPage: -1 });
                newD.insertPages({ cPath: pageFile, nPage: -1 });
                //File.delete(pageFile);
        }
        return true;
}

A special thanks to http://branch14.org/snippets/duplicate_all_pages_in_acrobat.html for providing this code!

Scan Open Book Pages and Save as a PDF

Open the book, place it face down on the scanner, and scan odd and even pages of the book at the same time.  Then, open the resulting PDF in Adobe Acrobat.

Crop and Split Pages

Go to the Edit menu and choose “Duplicate all pages”.  This option should be the last option on the menu.

Now, look at the first page of the PDF.  The odd page number from the book will be on the left hand side.  Crop out the page as shown in the example below:

Note that this should be applied to all odd pages.

Finally, do the same thing for the even page numbers as shown in the example below:

Now, each page of the book will be on a separate page in the PDF file.

Here is a very useful trick that I found today and want to share.

Create a file called “Reversepageorder.js” your Acrobat Javascipt Folder (C:Program FilesAdobeAcrobat 9.0AcrobatJavascripts).  Put the following in it:

app.addMenuItem({ cName: “Reverse”, cParent: “Document”, cExec: “PPReversePages();”, cEnable: “event.rc = (event.target != null);”, nPos: 0

});
function PPReversePages()
{
var t = app.thermometer;
t.duration = this.numPages;
t.begin();
for (i = this.numPages – 1; i >= 0; i–)
{
t.value = (i-this.numPages)*-1;
this.movePage(i);
t.text = ‘Moving page ‘ + (i + 1);
}
t.end();
}// JavaScript Document

Restart Acrobat.

The Reverse option will be under the Document menu.

If an image has transparent parts, some browsers will ignore them.  But, creating images with transparent parts is useful when making a collage or when creating a Visio diagram with embedded images.  Here is how to create an image with transparent parts using GIMP:

• Install GIMP, if necessary.  Here is a link to the Windows installer for GIMP 2.8.2
• Open the image, or copy/paste it into GIMP.  If it is copied in, save it before proceeding.
• Choose the Layer -> Add Transparency -> Add Alpha Channel menu.
• Click on the Fuzzy Select Tool icon:

• Click on the area of the image that you want to be transparent.  Note that the area of the image that you want to be transparent must have a fairly uniform color.
• Press Delete.
• Repeat until you have removed all of the areas of the image that you want to be transparent.
• Choose the File -> Export menu.
• Save the file as *.png