OT: pagination software

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OCTO
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Post by OCTO » Sun Oct 07, 2018 9:42 am

The day my old Win machine totally died, I lost the old version of Acrobat Pro which I used to organise multiple PDF files and add page numbers and headers/footers.

Now, when I have multiple Finale files for each movement, I need to combine parts with the correct pagination.

What software do you recommend, just for that? Preferably free, or low costs (I don't need any more function except to add pagination and if available headers/footers).

Windows 10 or OS X EC.
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mmike
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Post by mmike » Sun Oct 07, 2018 12:16 pm

PDF Split and Merge : Easily split, merge and extract pages from PDF files
(it's free and works well)
https://www.7-pdf.com/products/pdf-split-and-merge
7PDF offers also other free and useful PDF programs
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David Ward
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Post by David Ward » Sun Oct 07, 2018 12:57 pm

It's not free, but on a Mac I find PDFpen useful for this sort of thing and inexpensive. Also, I think it's possible buontempi of this forum (benwiggy of notat.io) may have created free software you can download via a link he'll provide that does what you want plus a lot more (I use it for watermarks).
Finale 25.5 & 26.3
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OCTO
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Post by OCTO » Sun Oct 07, 2018 3:04 pm

Thanks David, I will wait for more response.
mmike wrote:PDF Split and Merge : Easily split, merge and extract pages from PDF files
(it's free and works well)
https://www.7-pdf.com/products/pdf-split-and-merge
7PDF offers also other free and useful PDF programs
I can't see that this software makes pagination (put page numbers).
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motet
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Post by motet » Sun Oct 07, 2018 5:03 pm

I use CutePDF Pro, which has a lot of Acrobat-like features and costs about US$50.

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OCTO
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Post by OCTO » Sun Oct 07, 2018 5:27 pm

motet wrote:I use CutePDF Pro, which has a lot of Acrobat-like features and costs about US$50.
It looks that it is what I need.

* Have you already tried to add page numbers, footers and headers?
* Does it work well with Finale (print to PDF)?
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motet
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Post by motet » Sun Oct 07, 2018 5:44 pm

I use it to add headers, footers, and page numbers; to combine multiple acts of a part from separate Finale files into one file; and to produce booklets for saddle-stitched parts. It even adjusts for "page creep" so that when you trim away the ragged edge of the booklet, the pages still have equal margins left and right. It's got many other features.

From Finale I print to the "CutePDF" virtual printer, which doesn't have the problems that Finale's PDF function has. You can only do one part at a time, though--subsequent prints to CutePDF append (which is how I combine acts). I've seen people here asking to unleash Finale to make multiple PDF files one one click--it can't do that.

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Harpsi
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Post by Harpsi » Sun Oct 07, 2018 8:35 pm

Some freeware:

To merge PDFs together, you might find the NYC music services resources useful; there are a bunch of apps written by Abraham Lee, and the one called PDF - BatchStitch does just that. https://www.nycmusicservices.com/musicresources/

To add page numbers, I have used jPdf Tweak - Swiss Army Knife for PDF files, that you can find at http://jpdftweak.sourceforge.net/
PDF24 also works well for that purpose. It also can merge PDFs together and is very flexible.

I never tried to add headers, so I can't say if any of these programs does that.
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gogreen
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Post by gogreen » Sun Oct 07, 2018 9:26 pm

Harpsi: I hate to ask a dumb question, but jpdf tweak isn't for Mac, right?
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musikai
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Post by musikai » Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:47 pm

I use a combination of LibreOffice and pdftk called LOSA, which work on Windows, Linux, OSX and can merge pdfs, add pagenumbers, headers, footers, TOC etc. and costs nothing. See below.
Win7 Pro, Sibelius 7.1.3, Lubuntu 15.10
Free Project: LibreOffice Songbook Architect (LOSA)
http://struckkai.blogspot.de/2015/04/libreofficesongbookarchitect.html

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OCTO
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Post by OCTO » Sun Oct 07, 2018 11:17 pm

Thanks everyone, I think I will go for Motet's recommendation, CutePDF.
jPdf Tweak looks also good.
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Harpsi
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Post by Harpsi » Mon Oct 08, 2018 6:32 am

Gogreen, as it is a Java application it might be possible to run it on Mac also. However, on the website it is only listed for Windows and Linux.


Musikai, that seems very interesting! I will try it out when I have time.
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BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Tue Oct 09, 2018 8:09 am

David Ward wrote:It's not free, but on a Mac I find PDFpen useful for this sort of thing and inexpensive. Also, I think it's possible buontempi of this forum (benwiggy of notat.io) may have created free software you can download via a link he'll provide that does what you want plus a lot more (I use it for watermarks).
There's a range of Services for MacOS here, which includes page numbering (with the option to exclude page1 !); adding "1 of x" on each front page of a set of PDF parts; watermarking, combining PDFs, splitting PDFs, converting to images, and pretty much everything else that you can do with a PDF. These can be re-saved on MacOs 10.14 as the new-style Quick Actions.
Also PDF Services, which can appear in the PDF button of the print menu, and shell scripts. They're all designed to be quite modular and easy to adapt to other uses.
https://github.com/benwiggy/PDFsuite

I did start looking at producing Windows versions, but it required too many dependencies that the user would have to install beforehand.

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OCTO
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Post by OCTO » Tue Oct 09, 2018 8:51 am

I have purchased CutePDF Pro, as recommended by Motet - thank you.

The other options may perhaps work well, but I needed to fix the issue quickly and effectively, so that was the fastest option.
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motet
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Post by motet » Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:41 pm

I hope it works out for you. Let me know if you have any questions.

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OCTO
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Post by OCTO » Wed Oct 10, 2018 9:58 am

motet, thank you once again.

Now I have a question.
How to permanently add a new page size to CutePDF?
Windows 10 and CutePDF Pro.

I need to print always to NE 240*320mm.
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motet
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Post by motet » Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:14 pm

That's a Windows thing. I don't have Windows 10, but in Windows 7 you would go to Devices and Printers in the Control Panel, select the CutePDF printer, then click Print Server Properties, where you can create a new form.

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OCTO
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Post by OCTO » Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:27 pm

Hm, I don't know, there is no such option.
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motet
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Post by motet » Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:51 pm


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OCTO
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Post by OCTO » Wed Oct 10, 2018 7:17 pm

Wonderful, that worked well, thank you again!
I missed that setting, and spent two hours trying to fix it.
Better to wait for a friend to help! :D
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