pdftk isn't all that friendly towards scripting...I'll say that much.
I am going to work on this tomorrow...but to give you some feedback -
and I appreciate all of the thinking that you did on this..
$ cat I-A-files.txt | sed 's/ /\\ /g' | xargs cat | pdftk - output
I-A.pdf verbose
result, only last pdf in list was inserted in output file
$ cat I-A-files.txt |xargs -i pdftk "{}" cat output I-A.pdf verbose
-sh-3.2$ FILES=`cat file.txt | sed 's/ /\\ /g' |xargs`; pdftk $FILES cat
output I-a.pdf
cat: file.txt: No such file or directory
Error: No input files. Exiting.
Errors encountered. No output created.
Done. Input errors, so no output created.
$ mkdir temp; IFS=$'\n'; for file in `cat I-A-files.txt | sed
's/ /\ /g'`; do cp -v "$file" temp; done; cd temp; pdftk *.pdf cat
output ../I-a.pdf verbose ; unset IFS
This last one sort of worked...It's fixable/workable anyway.
Imagine publishing a book that is 400+ pages all separate Microsoft Word
documents (now being converted to OpenOffice, adding form elements and
then exporting into single page PDF documents...and I'm trying to script
the collection into a single PDF book. Nothing about this has been easy.
Thanks Charles
Craig
On Tue, 2008-03-04 at 20:53 -0700, Charles Jones wrote:
> Ahh yeah...can't believe I didn't think of that. BTW, for pdftk,
> "cat" is a command line option, not referring to the cat we know and
> love.
>
> I think the final ver of the command would be:
>
> cat I-A-files.txt |xargs -i pdftk "{}" cat output I-A.pdf verbose
>
> Okay...my head hurts now :)
>
> -Charles
>
> Erich Newell wrote:
> > xargs has additional flexibility...try using the "replace string"
> > parameter
> >
> > So do:
> >
> > cat list.txt | xargs -i cat "{}" | pdftk output -
> >
> > The curly braces indicate where the input goes...in this case,
> > between the quotes. Should handle those pesky spaces for you.
> >
> > Looks like this will dump a ton of pdf content to stdout....is that
> > what you really want?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 7:22 PM, Craig White <craigwhite@azapple.com>
> > wrote:
> > Again, that works but it fails because the PDF includes on
> > the last file. As I said, I don't think an xargs thing is
> > going to work at all because as the man page states...the
> > '-' option is to pass only a single file via stdin.
> >
> > Craig
> >
> > On Tue, 2008-03-04 at 19:10 -0700, Charles Jones wrote:
> > > Ah those darn spaces sure cause problems :) Give this a
> > try:
> > >
> > > $ cat I-A-files.txt | sed 's/ /\\ /g' | xargs cat | pdftk
> > - output
> > > I-a.pdf verbose
> > >
> > > It works for my test case:
> > > $ cat file.txt
> > > file with spaces
> > > some other file
> > >
> > > $ cat "file with spaces"
> > > This is the contents of a file with spaces
> > > $ cat some\ other\ file
> > > This is some other file
> > >
> > > $ cat file.txt | sed 's/ /\\ /g' |xargs cat
> > > This is the contents of a file with spaces
> > > This is some other file
> > >
> > > Probably a more elegant way to do it, but I'm late for
> > dinner :-)
> > >
> > > -Charles
> > >
> > >
> > > Craig White wrote:
> > > > That doesn't seem to work. I quoted the part of the man
> > page that the
> > > > '-' is used to pass only a single PDF into pdftk via
> > stdin and thus the
> > > > xargs thing seems not to fly.
> > > >
> > > > $ cat I-A-files.txt | xargs -0 pdftk cat output I-A.pdf
> > verbose
> > > > Error: No input files. Exiting.
> > > > Errors encountered. No output created.
> > > > Done. Input errors, so no output created.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks
> > > >
> > > > Craig
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, 2008-03-04 at 17:24 -0700, Charles Jones wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Give this a try:
> > > >>
> > > >> cat /path/to/filenames_file.xt |xargs pdftk
> > > >>
> > > >> -Charles
> > > >>
> > > >> Craig White wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >>> I have an awkward situation with pdftk
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I have a file with filenames that I want to pass to
> > pdftk as input
> > > >>> files.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> according to the man page...
> > > >>> <input PDF files | - | PROMPT>
> > > >>> A list of the input PDF files. If you plan to
> > combine these PDFs
> > > >>> (without using handles) then list files in the
> > order you want
> > > >>> them combined. Use - to pass a single PDF into
> > pdftk via stdin.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> and thus, this doesn't work...
> > > >>>
> > > >>> pdftk `cat "/mypath/to/I-A-files.txt"` cat output
> > I-A.pdf verbose
> > > >>>
> > > >>> fails on spaces within the paths/filenames in that
> > file.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I have tried both escaping the spaces with \ and
> > enclosing each path
> > > >>> within a double quote but neither works.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> I have also tried (which fails)...
> > > >>>
> > > >>> $ cat "/mypath/to/I-A-files.txt" | pdftk - cat output
> > I-A.pdf verbose
> > > >>> Error: Failed to open PDF file:
> > > >>> -
> > > >>> Errors encountered. No output created.
> > > >>> Done. Input errors, so no output created.
> > > >>> sh-3.2$ ls -l
> > > >>> total 4440
> > > >>> -rw-r--r-- 1 craig administrative 10 2008-03-04
> > 15:15 doc_toc.html
> > > >>> -rw-r--r-- 1 craig administrative 1898 2008-03-04
> > 15:30 I-A-files.txt
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Any suggestions on this?
> > > >>>
> > > >>> T
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