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recursively creating pdf from subdirectories containing TIF files

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2010-09-11 09:42:04
woodlandlarry
Registered: Sep 3 2010
Posts: 1

Hi

After reading a discussion about outputting pdfs as jpegs, I have a acrobat problem that is similar.

Here are the particulars of my problem:

I have about 100,000 TIFF documents (10GB) that I should have scanned as pdf output. These files arrange in subdirectories, with approx. 50-400 scans per directory.

The sequence of these insertions should match they way they were named. For example, a typical file name would be
......

MM-31GT-17D/XXXXXXXall-the-same-in-a-directory-XXXPAGE001-OF-062.TIF
...
MM-31GT-17D/XXXXXXXall-the-same-in-a-directory-XXXPAGE033-OF-062.TIF
MM-31GT-17D/XXXXXXXall-the-same-in-a-directory-XXXPAGE034-OF-062.TIF
MM-31GT-17D/XXXXXXXall-the-same-in-a-directory-XXXPAGE035-OF-062.TIF
...
MM-31GT-17D/XXXXXXXall-the-same-in-a-directory-XXXPAGE062-OF-062.TIF

next directory in this group:
MM-31GT-18/YYYYYYYYall-the-same-in-a-directory-YYYPAGE001-OF-201.TIF
etc...
........

there are no spaces in the file or subdirectory names.

I have acrobat prof. 8, and am running in windows 2000.

I would like to set up a batch sequence to create a parallel set of directories on another drive that would have the same structure, but with only a single acrobat file made up of the full set of each TIF files in the original subdirectory.

Since there are so many directories, if this could be done as a batch, I would like to set it up and let it go for however long it takes. If another program is needed, please let me know.

thanks in advance

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 8.0, Windows
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2010-09-16 08:28:32
#1
daka630
Expert
Registered: Mar 1 2007
Posts: 1420
Not elegant, but works - create the target directories/sub-directories -- create a Batch Sequence for each 'from-to' operation -- when a new Batch Sequence is created you have a configuration option to select 'commands' -- you do not need to do this - the default Output Options processes all selected PDFs for Fast Web View, so a Batch Sequence having no 'commands' selected will still do something. --- in a Batch Sequence Edit dialog you can configure to select a folder (that has files) for processing and configure to send processed output to a target folder. --- Be well...

Be well...

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2010-09-16 09:08:50
#2
UVSAR
Expert
Registered: Oct 29 2008
Posts: 1357
I don't think there's a practicable solution using Acrobat alone.

Batch can turn a set of TIFFs into a set of PDFs, but it doesn't cover the idea of combining them into a single PDF containing every image in that folder, and nor does the sequence cope with being batched at a higher level - given your folder count is massive, manually editing the sequence and re-typing the folder name and export name for each one is unrealistic.

It would in theory be possible to do something at OS level, for example in Visual Basic (move a folder of TIFFs into a watch folder, ask Acrobat to combine them using the API, rename the output PDF, move in the next set of TIFFs, etc.) so the batch sequence itself is the same every time, but it's not trivial.

You'll probably be better off using a PDF library written in Java/PHP etc and running the job as a console script.
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