Suggestions for new command line switches and tools

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jean-luc mittner
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Suggestions for new command line switches and tools

Post by jean-luc mittner »

Hi!

Oh dear! My message has disappeared when I was asked to login again after submitting it. The timespan of the session seems a bit short. Anyway here we go again:

(1) I do a lot of batch work using PDF6Tools and it works very well. Unfortunatetly, it lacks some features for this kind of work and I end up having to create a large number of custom tools, which is not very convenient. So, I would like to suggest some additional command line switches which would be extremely useful:

- Since we can define the source PDFs (or a whole directory) on the command line, a switch (like /out=) would be very useful to be able to define the target PDF (or directory) using the macros already defined.
- Likewise it would be very useful to be able to define on the commande line the parameters used by the crop, resize, extract and split/merge tools (in pt and mm, at least, for the first two). Even if all parameters cannot be defined on the command line, the possibility of defining the main ones would be a significant advantage.

(2) One additional tool which would be very useful, would be a structural info tool, providing the parameters of the mediabox, cropbox, rotation, number of pages and, possibly, the page labels, all in a text format easy to parse (ini type file, for instance)

(3) Lastly, another tool would be very useful: one that would allow the production of a 2-up and booklet version of a PDF from the command line. To be precise, for instance, given a 28-page A5 portrait pdf, I would like to be able to produce two 14-page A4 landscape pdfs:

- The 2-up would have on its first page: p.1 of the original on the left and p.2 of the original on the right, etc...
- The booklet version would have:
- on its first page: p.28 on the left and p.1 on the right,
- on its second page: p.2 on the left and p.27 on the right
etc..
Maybe there's already a way of doing this with the existing tools, but I haven't figured it out...

Would you be able to consider these improvements for a future release?

Thanks for your reply - and thanks for your good work!

JLM
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Suggestions for new command line switches and tools

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello jean-luc mittner,

Thanks for the post and suggestions. We are already working on some improvements to the PDF Tools application, but I will pass your suggestions above to the lead designer for this product, and they will be considered!

Cheers,
Stefan
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Re: Suggestions for new command line switches and tools

Post by Vasyl-Tracker Dev Team »

Hi Jean-Luc Mittner.
- Since we can define the source PDFs (or a whole directory) on the command line, a switch (like /out=) would be very useful to be able to define the target PDF (or directory) using the macros already defined.
Sure, we can add the something like "out=" option in the future.
- Likewise it would be very useful to be able to define on the commande line the parameters used by the crop, resize, extract and split/merge tools (in pt and mm, at least, for the first two). Even if all parameters cannot be defined on the command line, the possibility of defining the main ones would be a significant advantage.
Not sure that is good idea, because many action has huge amount of options and there is difficult to say which of them are main or not, and some of them can be main just for you but not for other peoples. May be in the future we will add possibility to specify in command line the special file file with additional tool's options (probably in JSON format), but currently it is not high-priority task, I guess.
(2) One additional tool which would be very useful, would be a structural info tool, providing the parameters of the mediabox, cropbox, rotation, number of pages and, possibly, the page labels, all in a text format easy to parse (ini type file, for instance)
May be I'm wrong but it looks like very special feature you need that cannot be used by most regular users. If you are developer - you may use our Editor SDK as well to do anything with pdf.
(3) Lastly, another tool would be very useful: one that would allow the production of a 2-up and booklet version of a PDF from the command line. To be precise, for instance, given a 28-page A5 portrait pdf, I would like to be able to produce two 14-page A4 landscape pdfs:
Yes, that is good idea, thanks. We planning to implement it in the future too.

Best
Regards.
Vasyl Yaremyn
Tracker Software Products
Project Developer

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jean-luc mittner
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Re: Suggestions for new command line switches and tools

Post by jean-luc mittner »

Hi!

Thanks for this prompt reply. I can't wait for these improvements. Two points though. You write:
- Likewise it would be very useful to be able to define on the commande line the parameters used by the crop, resize, extract and split/merge tools (in pt and mm, at least, for the first two). Even if all parameters cannot be defined on the command line, the possibility of defining the main ones would be a significant advantage.
Not sure that is good idea, because many action has huge amount of options and there is difficult to say which of them are main or not, and some of them can be main just for you but not for other peoples. May be in the future we will add possibility to specify in command line the special file file with additional tool's options (probably in JSON format), but currently it is not high-priority task, I guess.
Yes JSON parameter files would be good as they're easy to generate programmatically.
(2) One additional tool which would be very useful, would be a structural info tool, providing the parameters of the mediabox, cropbox, rotation, number of pages and, possibly, the page labels, all in a text format easy to parse (ini type file, for instance)
May be I'm wrong but it looks like very special feature you need that cannot be used by most regular users. If you are developer - you may use our Editor SDK as well to do anything with pdf.
I'd love to use the Editor SDK (although I can't say I'm too keen on Com objects, not being very familiar with them). The "only" problem is pricing. I am a modest developer and do voluntary work for various libraries and research groups with which I have worked while I was a researcher in maths. I don't get paid for my work and my pension is not exactly generous. So the SDK's pricing is way beyond my means, unfortunately. I understand that big companies such as those you list as your customers can afford that sort of money, thereby allowing you to cover your development costs. But for people like me, this is just unaffordable. Why not have a development model like Coherent, for instance, whereby you have a "community" version of your SDK, possibly with more limited functions, but which would give you a larger pool of beta-testers among people like me? All sides would gain, no?

Yours sincerely - JLM
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Will - Tracker Supp
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Re: Suggestions for new command line switches and tools

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi JLM,

Thanks for the post - We'll look into the possibility of adding this to the end user app, but won't make any promises for now.

Thanks,
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Thank you.

Best regards

Will Travaglini
Tracker Support (Europe)
Tracker Software Products Ltd.
http://www.tracker-software.com
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