convert multiple TIF files into one searchable PDF file

[GordonPrince]

I'm new to Acrobat VBA. What's a recommended approach to converting multiple single page .TIF files into a new, searchable .PDF file?

Something like:

create new .pdf file
for each .tif file
     open .tif file
     convert to .pdf format
     add this page to new .pdf file
next
make the new .pdf file searchable
save the new .pdf file

I've seen in some of the other posts that opening a .tif file with the "AcroExch.PDDoc" works but that it's not supported. I'd like to build on supported approaches, if possible.

Thanks for assistance.

[lrosenth · Accepted solution]

There is not officially supported method for conversion from VBA.

[GordonPrince]

So would it be a supported approach if I created an Add-In using VB.NET, exposed it as a COM object to my Access application via VBA, then process the items? If so, what would the commands be in the Add-In to do this.

Thanks for any ideas. As I said, I'm experienced with VBA and VB.NET, just new to Adobe Acrobat programming.

[Test Screen Name]

Plugins are written only in C++. It is not impossible to expose a COM interface but it’s a serious challenge.

[hcrc]

Here is some VB.Net code I recently wrote to convert TIF to PDF using the Acrobat SDK.  This was written and tested with the Visual Studio Community 2017 ( https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/ )

However this code does not create a PDF which is searchable (OCRed).   I think that the Acrobat SDK does not allow (expose) Acrobat's OCR engine because Acrobat Corporation does not want to let you write software to use their OCR engine for automated OCRing.   To do the OCRing you may need to purchase an OCR engine/library.  Alternatively the recently active OCRMYPDF ( https://github.com/jbarlow83/OCRmyPDF ) software might perhaps be possible for you to use.

    Private Sub btnTIFtoPDF_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnTIFtoPDF.Click

        ' From: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.text.pdf/wXtsfEpIYT0

        ' November 2017, converted to VB.Net by Phil Grenfell

        Dim FileName_input As String = "c:\temp\vb_TIFtoPDF\Input.tif"

        Dim FileName_output As String = "c:\temp\vb_TIFtoPDF\Output.pdf"

        Dim AcroApp As Object = CreateObject("AcroExch.App")    ' Application oject

        Dim AVDoc As Object = CreateObject("AcroExch.AVDoc")    ' AVDoc has visible user interface.  Every AVDoc has associated PDDoc which can be retrieved with AVDoc.GetPDDoc method.

        display_log("Opening " & FileName_input & " ...")

        Call AVDoc.Open(FileName_input, "")                     ' Takes a long time - I think it's actually converting the TIF to PDF

        display_log("Opened " & FileName_input)

        AVDoc = AcroApp.GetActiveDoc

        If AVDoc.IsValid Then

            Dim PDDoc As CAcroPDDoc ' Invisible interface to a document

            PDDoc = AVDoc.GetPDDoc                                  ' PDDoc is a VISBILE interface to the AVDoc document

            display_log("Saving " & FileName_output & " ...")

            If PDDoc.Save(Acrobat.PDSaveFlags.PDSaveFull Or Acrobat.PDSaveFlags.PDSaveLinearized Or Acrobat.PDSaveFlags.PDSaveCollectGarbage, FileName_output) <> True Then MsgBox("Failed to Save " & FileName_output)

            PDDoc.Close()           ' You can ignore "PDDoc is used before it has been assigned a value." warning, that's because PDDoc.Save is used inside an IF block

            PDDoc = Nothing         ' Cleanup the object

        End If

        AVDoc.Close(True)       ' Close the PDF

        AcroApp.Exit            ' Close Acrobat application

        AVDoc = Nothing         ' Clean up the object

        AcroApp = Nothing       ' Clean up application Object

        display_log("Saved " & FileName_output)

    End Sub

    Private Sub display_log(log_message As String)

        ' Append a message to our log textbox

        TextBox_Log.AppendText(log_message & Environment.NewLine)

    End Sub

[Test Screen Name]

AvDoc.Open is only supported for PDF files even if it accidentally, in some versions, triggers other behaviour.

[hcrc]

ha ha .. I guess I got lucky that AvDoc.Open “accidentally” opens a TIF file! 🙂    I’m not very experienced with the Acrobat SDK so even though my code might not be perfect or useful I wanted to share something that I’ve got working as a small thank you to the forum’s members. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to share their knowledge on this forum. 🙂

BTW, in case anyone is curious I also found that my code can often result is significant compression of the file during conversion from TIF to PDF.   If my input TIF file is 10MB the resulting PDF is only 7.7MB.

Furthermore, I forgot to mention earlier that at the very top of my form’s code window I put the command:

Imports Acrobat

Furthermore, in Visual Studio Community 2017 it’s necessary to right-click the project, choose “Properties” then click “References” and check the “Adobe Acrobat 10.0 Type Library” box.