Post-processing Output Split Files using Acrobat JavaScript

AutoSplit plug-in for Adobe® Acrobat®

Introduction

After a split operation has been carried out by the AutoSplit™ plug-in, it’s possible to execute additional processing on the output files using Acrobat JavaScript code.

The plug-in provides the ability to execute user-defined Acrobat JavaScript scripts on each output document. This allows you to add a wide range of custom processes to the document splitting process – for example, split files may: have additional text added to them; be sent to a default printer; or have cover pages added from another document.

JavaScript is the cross-platform scripting language of the Adobe Acrobat family of products that includes Acrobat Professional, Acrobat Standard, and Adobe Reader. Through JavaScript extensions, the viewer application and its plug-ins expose much of their functionality to document authors, form designers, and plug-in developers. This functionality includes the following features, among others:

• Modify document properties
• Insert, delete or extract pages from another PDF file
• Add watermarks, or header/footer
• Add comments and notes
• Add or modify form fields within the document
• Create reports
• Add links and bookmarks

Visit the Adobe website for additional information and resources related to Acrobat JavaScript programming.

Input Document Description

To demonstrate how post-processing may be configured, we will carry out a basic splitting operation and instruct the plug-in to add various document modifications after the splitting procedure is complete. The first example shows how to add a text watermark to each output document. The input document is a PDF file containing six combined single-page sample invoices, which will be split into six separate documents. These files will be watermarked with red "CONFIDENTIAL" text written across the center of the page.

Prerequisites

You need a copy of Adobe® Acrobat® along with the AutoSplit™ plug-in installed on your computer in order to use this tutorial. Both are available as trial versions.

Step 1 - Open the "Split Document Settings" Dialog

With the file that is to be split open in Adobe Acrobat, select "Plug-Ins > Split Documents > Split Document..." from the main menu to open the "Split Document Settings" dialog.
[⚡ How to locate Plugins menu in Adobe® Acrobat® ⚡]

Step 2 - Configure the Splitting Method

Select a splitting method from the "Split Method" list. In this example, we use the "Equal size documents of X pages each" option. By default, this is set to "1" page-long documents. Click here for a list of splitting tutorials explaining different methods for separating large documents into individual files.

Now specify an output location for the split files via the "Browse..." button. Also configure a file naming method using the naming section. AutoSplit™ offers various ways to name output documents - for example, by extracting text from a specific page location or by using a text search. In this example, output files will be named using "Invoice_" followed by the customer name that features within each document.

Step 3 - Open Post-Processing Options

Press the "Post-Processing..." button to open the "Document Post Processing" settings dialog.

Step 4 - Type JavaScript Code

Check the "Execute JavaScript" option, then type the desired code into the box below.

Here are some examples of what can be done with JavaScript:

1. Add a watermark to the center of all pages of the current document (e.g.: "Confidential") using a specific font:

this.addWatermarkFromText("CONFIDENTIAL", 0, font.Helv, 50, color.red);

2. Specify document properties ("Title", "Subject", "Author", "Keywords"):

this.info.Title="This is a document title";
this.info.Subject="Type document subject here";
this.info.Author="My Company, Inc.";
this.info.Keywords="Keyword1, Keyword2, Keyword3";

3. Insert a cover page from another document:

this.insertPages ({ nPage: -1, cPath: "/c/Documents/CoverPage.pdf", nStart: 0 });

4. Send documents to a default printer:

this.print({bUI: false, bSilent: true, bShrinkToFit: true});

See all of these script examples demonstrated below - first we will demonstrate option '1': using the following code, a watermark will be added to all output documents ("CONFIDENTIAL"):

Step 5 - Split the Document

Once the splitting operation has been fully configured, press "OK" to proceed.

Press "OK" again to confirm the procedure.

Step 6 - Check the Results

A results dialog lists the output files that have been created. Press the "Open Output Folder" button to view them.

Open an output document in Adobe Acrobat to check it.

In this example, each output document has been successfully watermarked.

Example 2: Using JavaScript to Add Document Properties

These sample lines of code can be used to add document properties to output files. They may be useful for adding metadata information to the documents.

Edit the text within "..." quotation marks according to your document's requirements, and run the split operation.

To view document properties in an output file, open it in Acrobat and select "File > Properties...".

Open the "Description" tab. All document properties that were added via the JavaScript code can be seen here:

Example 3: Using JavaScript to Add a Cover Page

The sample script shown below can be used to insert a cover page into each output file. The file path is specified within the code so that the plug-in can locate the file that is to be inserted.

Using this script, the "CoverPage.pdf" document has been inserted at the beginning of all output documents.

Example 4: Using JavaScript to Print Output Files

This script can be used to send output documents to your default printer:

Once the split operation is complete, the output files will immediately be sent to your default printer queue.

Contact EverMap technical support at tech@evermap.com if you need help writing a particular custom post-processing Acrobat JavaScript script.

Click here for a list of all step-by-step tutorials available.