How to shuffle PDF pages randomly

[MikeDom]

Hello,

I have a multipage PDF with about 500 pages. The pages contain variable content, so each page looks slight different. I am looking for a way to shuffle the page or in other words to automatically and randomly mix pages in the page position. So that i.e page one becomes page 300 and page 488 becomes page 2 and so forth. I do not want to do a manual page move.

Any idea?

[try67 · Accepted solution]

You can do it by executing this JavaScript code, for example from a Custom Command. Edit the value in the first line to change the number of "shuffles" that will take place. Even with a low number you will get pretty good results, as both the source page and the target page are random.

var numShuffles = 500;
for (var i=0; i<=numShuffles; i++) {
	var sourcePage = Math.floor(Math.random()*this.numPages);
	var targetPage = Math.floor(Math.random()*this.numPages);
	this.movePage(sourcePage, targetPage);
}

[MikeDom]

That code shows a syntax error when using Javascript in Acrobat Pro on an open multipage PDF. Can you guide me on how to use your code on a PDF. I'm not a programmer unfortunatelly.

Thanks

Mike

[try67]

There's no syntax error. Either you edited it incorrectly or you're not running the full code. You don't need to be a programmer. Just run it as-is from a Custom Command or the JS Console. If you're doing the latter make sure to select all of it before executing it.

[MikeDom]

It works now. Thanks for your support.