Batch Script to generate Landscape files with cPDF?-CodePudding

See if anyone can help me. For example:

I have a .pdf document with 4 pages.

With the command below I can make this .pdf document have two pages, that is, two pages on the same sheet in "landscape" format

cpdf -twoup-stack in.pdf -o out.pdf

But I need to make it work on multiple files in the same folder. I tried the command below and it didn't work. If anyone has a solution I would appreciate it, I'm a beginner.

This prints only one file from the folder.

cpdf -twoup-stack path\*.pdf -o out.pdf

CodePudding user response：

You need to concatenate the multiple 4 page document into one file, then process them afterwards.

If you can safely run the command with all the files use this:

cpdf -merge p*.pdf AND -twoup-stack -o out.pdf

If you are on Linux/*BSD/macOS and need take care with filenames, use this:

find . -type f -name p\*.pdf -print0 | xargs -0 cpdf -merge -stdout | cpdf -twoup-stack -stdin -o out.pdf

The find looks for any file in the current directory starting with p and ending in .pdf.

Then pass that through xargs -0 to safely run cpdf having it output to stdout.

Finally stack the file, two per page, and write to out.pdf.

CodePudding user response：

Looks like your using the windows version thus from cmd prompt to process all files in current folder you could use the simpler

forfiles /m *.pdf /c "cmd /c cpdf -twoup-stack in.pdf -o out-@file"

so in1.pdf becomes out-in1.pdf

similar is

for %f in (*.pdf) do cpdf -twoup-stack in.pdf -o "out-%f"

It is more convenient to use a batch.cmd file with a different for structure, with some variables to allow drag and drop or specify a default folder etc.

so if the following 2up.cmd is placed in a work folder with multiple pdfs it will on entering 2up or a simple double click on that cmd file then process all the pdf files in that working folder.

Note a batch file needs %% where a cmd line would just need one but the single %~ inside the brackets is correct ! also define the folder for cpdf to ensure it is the only cpdf command accessed and generally "double quote" to avoid problems with spaces.

@echo off
REM ensure we only run in this file.cmd dir not any system dir
cd /d "%~dp0"

for %%F in ("%~dp0*.pdf") do "c:\path to\cpdf.exe" -twoup-stack "%%F" -o "%%~dpnF-out.pdf"

The result will be a rotated imposition compared to source pages so the next step is usually add a second command at the end to rotate those-out.PDFs.

for %%F in ("%~dp0*-out.pdf") do "c:\path to\cpdf.exe" -rotate 90 "%%F" -o "%%~dpnF-2up.pdf"

If you are going to run twice for 4-up it becomes more desirable to delete work files so in that case consider if a last del *-out.pdf is also required

To adapt to a remote folder or for drag and drop is beyond this question so try FOR /? to see many other options including adapting to work with sub directories. For a single file drag and drop variant modify similar to https://github.com/GitHubRulesOK/MyNotes/blob/master/AppNotes/SumatraPDF/Addins/N-Up-PDF/2-Up-PDF.cmd