Inserting Multi-page PDF variable graphics

[Fellsway]

That worked great! Thanks Dan!!

[farns]

Dan, I'm revisiting this thread for some new insight. I used this solution about a year ago to tackle a project and it worked great. Now I'm trying something new.

I have a client who is doing their own VDP composition and sending me PDF files which are very great in number. Some have 300,000 pages in them!

We are working with them presently using a band-aid solution with our pre-press software, Preps. I use Acrobat Pro to break the 300,000 record file into 3600 record chucks, as we run this job 6-up, and want 600 sheets in a stack.

I'm toying around with automating this with FP (and ultimately letting FP Server do all the heavy lifting).

I don't care if I have to break the files into chunks still, that's super easy. But if I was able to feed the original file in, that would be even more awesome.

But the problem I'm running into, as others have mentioned, is the 6-up imposition doesn't work, because even though there are 3600 "records" in the pdf file, FP sees the file as "1 record". I've been re-reading this trying to understand if there's another approach... Is there a way for me help FP see that every two pages in the PDF constitutes a new "record" or "instance"? I'm not sure I'm asking for exactly the same thing as other users here, but I'm not sure I'm following all the responses.

[merski007]

Hey everyone!

This is an awesome thread and has really helped me with my project. Below is the tactic I ended up using:

-Create a 48pg document to receive in any pdf with up to 48pages
-Name each page as 'p1', 'p2, 'p3', etc...
-Make them all unused pages except for pg1
-Create a graphic frame on each page and name the frames 'p1', 'p2, 'p3', etc...
-The OnRecordStart will do the rest

Take a look at the zip attachment, all code and a working template are included inside it.

Here is the code for those who want a quick preview:
pagesInPDF = 0;
markupToReturn = '';
PDFresourceRef = new FusionProResource(Field("image"), "graphic", true);

//Find out how many pages it has
pagesInPDF = PDFresourceRef.countPages;

//Page usage loop to turn pages on based on pagesInPDF
for (i = 1; i <= pagesInPDF; i++){
FusionPro.Composition.SetBodyPageUsage('p' + i, true);
}

//Graphic frame loop to specify which pdf page goes into which graphic frame
for (pageLoop = 1; pageLoop <= pagesInPDF; pageLoop++){
var frame = FindGraphicFrame('p' + pageLoop);
frame.SetGraphic('<graphic file="' + PDFresourceRef.name + '" pagenumber = "' + pageLoop + '" scale="off" />');
}

return markupToReturn;

*****One catch with this template, you can't impose multiple records where the pdf page count varies. For example, record 1 has a 16p PDF and record 2 has a 32p PDF. The template will only use the record 1 (16p) info. I believe this due in part to the template using FPImposer.

Cheers,
Mark