Batch making all folder contents into in PDF

[tromba99]

I know how to combine files into one PDF by adding multiple files, selecting the folder, selecting the files, create pdf, save, etc.

I have over 5000 folders -- each folder with 1-100+ jpg files. I want the contents of each folder to be one PDF but doing all those steps over 5000 times is far too cumbersome.

I'd like to select a directory and press the GO button and it would automatically with no further input from me take all the files in that folder and create on PDF file (jpgs are sequentially named, so they should be already in the correct order.)

Is there a way to make a GO button?  🙂 I've looked at the Action Wizard and don't see a way there.

Acrobat X on Windows 10 and Mac OSX

[Adorobat]

Hello Dennis ,

I am not sure about the Batch processing but you can try this option .

Move all the folders which have jpgs to the Default "Pictures" folder and when combining a pdf , Select "Add a Folder option>Select "Pictures" and then combine.

Hope it helps!

Thanks!

Shivam

[tromba99]

Thank you for your reply!!

I don't know how I missed the "add a folder" before, but yes this works. However it's still several steps -- picking the folder, click to continue, then once the PDF is opened to SAVE AS and name it. (I found I don't have to use Pictures folder, but can use the folder where they all are now).

In all cases for me, the folder name should be the PDF name once the contents are combined into a single PDF.

I've recorded series of actions like this in Photoshop and use them all the time. I even thought of using PS, don't see an easy way there either.

This does save the one step of picking the files individually within a folder, but still seems cumbersome for over 5000 folders...

[Adorobat]

The thing is that combing files and running action are two different options and to let them work simultaneously , some java script is needed. However what you can do is you can create a new Main folder with the name you want, and copy all the 5000 sub folders into it or create a main folder above the sub-folders .

For ex -     Main Folder  -    1 

                  Sub-folder   -    1.1

                  Sub-Folder  -     1.2

Open Acrobat and when combining files , select that Main folder which contains 5000 sub-folders.This will save you from adding all those 5000 folders manually.

Hope it helps.

Thanks!

Shivam

[tromba99]

Shivam, Thank you for your reply....

But wouldn't that put all the contents of all the folders into one PDF? What I actually have is 5000 folders each with 1-100+ graphic files in it. I probably wasn't very clear in my explanation.

What I need to do is go to each one of the 5000 folders and make 5000 PDF files, each with the contents of its own folder.

While no expert, I've spent some time with Java script... what would be involved with this?

[Bernd Alheit]

This is possible with VBScript or AppleScript.

[try67]

I've developed a script for Acrobat that allows you to do it (using an

Action).

You can get it from here:

http://try67.blogspot.com/2010/10/acrobat-batch-combine-all-files-in.html

[tromba99]

try67 -- thanks for your reply.

If I'm reading it correctly, it says that the contents of the folder must be pdfs. (With this tool you can combine all of the (PDF) files in a folder to a single file )

Mine are all png files (I thought they were jpg earlier). Will this work with that also?

[try67]

It will if you first convert them to PDFs, which is easily done using a

"blank" Action.

I have also developed a standalone version of this tool, if you're

interested.

[tromba99]

try67 - your last answer was a little beyond me at this point.

I haven't used any actions yet -- would  a "blank" action be able to create PDFs of all the png files within the 5000 folders (don't know how many but I'd guess 30,000 - 40,000 files total) at once?

And I don't know if I'd be interested in a standalone version. what would the advantage or disadvantage of that be?

This certainly appears to be a promising solution!

[try67]

I think 5000 foldera is too much for Acrobat. It can't handle that many

files in a single process.

That's also the main reason for using a standalone tool. It's much more

robust and can handle large amounts of files.

[tromba99]

try67 -- Sorry to appear slow to catch on to all this....

So I've got two tasks here

1. Getting all the 5000+ folder contents (30,000 - 40,000?? files) to PDF

2. The use your standalone program to make a PDF of the contents of each folder.

What gets step one done?

[tromba99]

What I have done so far is take my folders and create pdfs of all the contents in a batch process. So I have, for example 

Trumpet Concertos       <-------- root folder for the folders below

   Trumpet Concerto No. 1    <------- folder

     0001.png

     0002.png

     0003.png

  Trumpet Concerto No. 2  <------ another folder

     0001.png

     0002.png

and so on and so on.

Using Acrobat X on OSX I did File/Create/Batch create multiple files -- then from the drop-down changed Add Files... to Add Folders...

Using the example above, I selected the Trumpet Concertos folder and then in the Trumpet Concerto No. 1 folder I had 3 more files, 0001.pdf, 0002.pdf, 0003.pdf. Similar results in all subfolders

My biggest problem was that creating the PDF degraded the quality of the .png file so it looked quite blurry. What I need to do next, and this is probably where what was mentioned by try67 comes in, is to combine 0001.pdf, 0002.pdf and 0003.pdf into one PDF titled Trumpet Concerto No. 1 (the folder name where those files are located) then have it continue with the 5000+ folders to do the same thing. However the degradation of quality of the original png was serious enough that I may not proceed. Maybe creating a PDF of all 3 PDF files would degrade it even more.

I've always noticed some degradation when creating PDFs -- is this always the case or are there settings I've missed?

[try67]

1. You would need to create an Action that does nothing, basically. For example, you can add to it an Execute JavaScript command and leave it blank. Then run that Action on your folder. It will convert all non-PDFs to PDF.