Retain logical page numbering when combining multiple PDF files

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DIV
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Retain logical page numbering when combining multiple PDF files

Post by DIV »

Hi, all.

I have PDF-XChange v 6.0. I would like to retain logical page numbering when combining multiple PDF files into one larger file.
By logical page numbers I am referring to the "numbers" that appear underneath the thumbnails. Note that by specifying a prefix without trailing numeral it is possible to 'number' a page with a text description, such as "Front cover", etc.

Typical workflow:
1. (a) Open first document, say it is the front matter, and assign/confirm logical page numbers as follows: {"Title page", "Publishing info", i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, ...}.
(b) Open second document, say it is Chapter one, and assign/confirm logical page numbers as follows: {1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, ...}.
(c) Open third document, say it is Chapter two, and assign/confirm logical page numbers as follows: {2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, ...}.
(d) Open fourth document, say it is the first batch of colour plates, and assign/confirm logical page numbers as follows: {"Plate 1", "Plate 1 verso", "Plate 2", "Plate 2 verso", ...}.
(e) Open fifth document, say it is Chapter three, and assign/confirm logical page numbers as follows: {3-1, 3-2, 3-3, 3-4, ...}.
and so forth.
2. Combine all of the individual components into one unified PDF file. I would obviously prefer to keep all of the logical page numbering above. However, I cannot find a way to do this in any software. Instead all of the customised logical page numbering is lost, and "Title page" becomes 1, i becomes 3, 1-1 might become (say) 15, "Plate 1" might become (say) 33, and so on.

Unsatisfactory workarounds:
I. Don't renumber the individual documents, just renumber the final document. This is no good for two reasons: I've already put effort into complex logical renumbering to precisely match the printed work for the individual components; readers may want to access/download/open only one part of the whole.
II. Just renumber everything again. This is inconvenient because even the complex numbering outlined above is a simplification of what was actually involved. Yes, it's possible to do it, but it feels like it shouldn't be necessary!

As mentioned, I can't see that this feature is available in any software, but my hunch is that it would be very easy to add this functionality to PDF-XChange. Maybe a (small) selling point over competitors? I imagine it would be implemented with the user interface being a tickbox somewhere either hidden in options or presented in-context where relevant, defaulting to off so as not to 'confuse' people used to the old/existing behaviour.

Thanks,
David

P.S. If anyone has a hack involving manually editing the files with (say) a hex editor that would save time in the meanwhile, then I'm open to those suggestions too. Ta.

P.P.S. I guess this issue is related to that described at "Keep page numbers when extracting parts of PDF"
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/forum3 ... ing#p97621
Unfortunately the answer there was that there was no way of doing that, as at Jan 2016.
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Will - Tracker Supp
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Re: Retain logical page numbering when combining multiple PDF files

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi David,

Thanks for the post - I've passed the suggestion along to the Dev. Team for consideration in a future release. Ticket RT-3951 is assigned to the request, but please note that this is not a guarantee to implement the feature, only a guarantee that it will be given serious and due consideration.

Thanks,
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

Best regards

Will Travaglini
Tracker Support (Europe)
Tracker Software Products Ltd.
http://www.tracker-software.com
DIV
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Re: Retain logical page numbering when combining multiple PDF files

Post by DIV »

Thanks, Will. Due consideration is as much as I would have hoped for.
By the way, I suppose in practical implementation there may need to be a 'confirmation' dialogue box generated if a user (presumably by accident) tries to combine multiple PDF files that haven't been numbered with mutual consistency (e.g. three files each with logical page numbering: 1, 2, 3, ...), along the lines: "Page numbering: You are about to create a document in which more than one page would be assigned the same page number. Do you wish to proceed? Click 'No' to renumber all pages from 1 to N." However, I expect most users wouldn't activate the setting (if implemented) unless they were actively looking to do so.
Probably there'd actually be more demand from people wishing to split documents while keeping the same logical page numbering. In that case, no such potential clash could occur, accidentally or otherwise.
—David
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Retain logical page numbering when combining multiple PDF files

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello David,

I believe the way logical page numebrs are implemented in the PDF specification does allow for "duplicate" sections - but such scenarios will indeed have to be taken into account if such a feature is to be developed!

Thanks for your patience while we evaluate this feature request!

Regards,
Stefan
DIV
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Re: Retain logical page numbering when combining multiple PDF files

Post by DIV »

No worries, Stefan.
Thanks in return for the consideration!
—David (a.k.a. "not really William")
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