Merge PDF files command line with bookmarks

Question

I am trying to accomplish a simple task of merging PDF files to one PDF. And I want the resulting PDF file to have Bookmarks to each file from the filename. And preferably i would like to have a free solution for this.

I am on a windows system and want to execute this from either command line or even better from MSSQL.

The thing is that i will create PDF files of orders from an ERP system with Crystal Reports. An stored procedure will create these PDF files. After that i want to take selected PDFs and create a new merged PDF of those and the merged PDF should have each order number (from the filename) as a bookmark. So that you easily can jump to an order number if you are searching for a specific one.

And as I said preferably free solutions, if not available I am ready to code my own merge program in for example C# or similar.

How far have you got? Which bits work? Which bits are you stuck on? — David Rushton, Nov 15 '16 at 13:21
I have googled solutions for merging PDF files to look for a command line tool and havent found any. I am at the point where i have the individual PDF files completed and cant really decide if i should try to make my own program to handle the merge or if there already is something that does this. I guess thats where im stuck. — Arto Uusikangas, Nov 15 '16 at 13:24
Do you need to merge? Could you not: a) export individual PDFs b) reuse the same process to export a combined PDF? — David Rushton, Nov 15 '16 at 13:33

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 27 '16 at 13:18

I think you would need Adobe Acrobat for this, at a bare minimum. Or, if you don't have that and you don't want to pay for it, you can convert all PDFs to TXT files, and merge all TXT files. This sounds a bit cumbersome, but actually, the easiest thing to do . . . maybe . . . is to convert all those TXT files into Excel files, and merge those. That shouldn't be hard at all. Here is a script to convert all TXT files into Excel files.

Private Declare Function SetCurrentDirectoryA Lib _
        "kernel32" (ByVal lpPathName As String) As Long

Public Function ChDirNet(szPath As String) As Boolean
'based on Rob Bovey's code
    Dim lReturn As Long
    lReturn = SetCurrentDirectoryA(szPath)
    ChDirNet = CBool(lReturn <> 0)
End Function

Sub Get_TXT_Files()
'For Excel 2000 and higher
    Dim Fnum As Long
    Dim mysheet As Worksheet
    Dim basebook As Workbook
    Dim TxtFileNames As Variant
    Dim QTable As QueryTable
    Dim SaveDriveDir As String
    Dim ExistFolder As Boolean

    'Save the current dir
    SaveDriveDir = CurDir

    'You can change the start folder if you want for
    'GetOpenFilename,you can use a network or local folder.
    'For example ChDirNet("C:\your_path_here\")
    'It now use Excel's Default File Path

    ExistFolder = ChDirNet("C:\your_path_here\\Text\")
    If ExistFolder = False Then
        MsgBox "Error changing folder"
        Exit Sub
    End If

    TxtFileNames = Application.GetOpenFilename _
    (filefilter:="TXT Files (*.txt), *.txt", MultiSelect:=True)

    If IsArray(TxtFileNames) Then

        On Error GoTo CleanUp

        With Application
            .ScreenUpdating = False
            .EnableEvents = False
        End With

        'Add workbook with one sheet
        Set basebook = Workbooks.Add(xlWBATWorksheet)

        'Loop through the array with txt files
        For Fnum = LBound(TxtFileNames) To UBound(TxtFileNames)

            'Add a new worksheet for the name of the txt file
            Set mysheet = Worksheets.Add(After:=basebook. _
                                Sheets(basebook.Sheets.Count))
            On Error Resume Next
            mysheet.Name = Right(TxtFileNames(Fnum), Len(TxtFileNames(Fnum)) - _
                                    InStrRev(TxtFileNames(Fnum), "\", , 1))
            On Error GoTo 0

            With ActiveSheet.QueryTables.Add(Connection:= _
                        "TEXT;" & TxtFileNames(Fnum), Destination:=Range("A1"))
                .TextFilePlatform = xlWindows
                .TextFileStartRow = 1

                'This example use xlDelimited
                'See a example for xlFixedWidth below the macro
                .TextFileParseType = xlDelimited

                'Set your Delimiter to true
                .TextFileTabDelimiter = True
                .TextFileSemicolonDelimiter = False
                .TextFileCommaDelimiter = False
                .TextFileSpaceDelimiter = False

                'Set the format for each column if you want (Default = General)
                'For example Array(1, 9, 1) to skip the second column
                .TextFileColumnDataTypes = Array(1, 9, 1)

                'xlGeneralFormat  General          1
                'xlTextFormat     Text             2
                'xlMDYFormat      Month-Day-Year   3
                'xlDMYFormat      Day-Month-Year   4
                'xlYMDFormat      Year-Month-Day   5
                'xlMYDFormat      Month-Year-Day   6
                'xlDYMFormat      Day-Year-Month   7
                'xlYDMFormat      Year-Day-Month   8
                'xlSkipColumn     Skip             9

                ' Get the data from the txt file
                .Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False
            End With
        ActiveSheet.QueryTables(1).Delete
        Next Fnum

        'Delete the first sheet of basebook
        On Error Resume Next
        Application.DisplayAlerts = False
        basebook.Worksheets(1).Delete
        Application.DisplayAlerts = True
        On Error GoTo 0

CleanUp:

        ChDirNet SaveDriveDir

        With Application
            .ScreenUpdating = True
            .EnableEvents = True
        End With
    End If
End Sub

Merge PDF files command line with bookmarks

1 Answers1