PDFSELECT

CLAUS GERHARDT

Date: January 6, 2009.

Contents

Contents
 1.  Introduction
 2.  Merging pdf files
 3.  Requirements
 4.  Installation
 5.  The other applications in TEXHelpers
 6.  Download link
 7.  Links

1. Introduction

Pdfselect allows to extract pages from a pdf file by using the LATEX package pdfpages by Andreas Matthias. The pdf file has to be opened in TeXShop or Preview, then you can run pdfselect. The pages you want to extract should be given as list, e.g.,

3,7-23,{},1

entered in a dialogue window, will produce a pdf file containing the pages 3,7 - 23 an empty page and page 1 in that order. The paper size will be that of the original file. The string „-“ will insert all pages, „4-“ all pages starting with page 4 and „last-1“ will produce a pdf file with pages in reverse order.

Iftratchtee odr fiilgeinahla rse tsoid beescinreaatendonin-waritwarbiltaeb dlier deicrtoerctyo,r tyh.a Tnhetrhee ewxi-ll be an option for choosing it.

Getting the path of a displayed pdf file from Preview requires „UI Scripting“ , i.e., in „System Preferences/Universal Access“ the option „enable access for assistive devices“ has to be checked.

When a dvi file is opened in TeXShop as a pdf file, then TeXShop will report the path of the opened pdf to be the one of the dvi file; pdfselect can handle this case too.

2. Merging pdf files

Pdfselect can also merge selected pages of pdf files into a common pdf file named according to your wishes. The pdf files are chosen with the help of standard open file dialogues and the page selection follows the identical rules as explained in the previous section.

The merged pdf file will be saved in

~/Library/Flashmode/merge

3. Requirements

  1. Pdfselect is a universal application that requires OS 10.4 or better.
  2. A tex installation and a symlink
    ~/texprograms

    pointing to the tex source. The symlink can be defined with help of the included program „Local Switcher“, if the path of your tex source is one of the following

    /usr/local/texlive/year  
    /usr/local/texlive2005  
    /usr/local/tetex

    otherwise you have to define it manually.

4. Installation

If you don’t have a folder named „Flashmode“ in

~/Library

install the included folder Flashmode, otherwise install the folders „select“, „merge“ and „bin“ in „Flashmode“ in your already existing Flashmode folder

~/Library/Flashmode

and don’t remove or change the files in „select“ —only the paper size in „merge-pdfselect.tex“ may be changed.

Boen tawhaerepatthhat the shell scripts in the provided bin folder all rely set path= ( $home/texprograms /usr/local/bin /usr/bin /bin /sbin /usr/sbin ) If your existing shell scripts (in your old Flashmode/bin) use a different path, which you do not want to change, then only install the shell script dvipdfh“ into your existing bin folder replacing any previous sh”ell script with the same name.

5. The other applications in TEXHelpers

Pdfselect will be part of the bundle TEXHelpers. The other applications as well as pdfselect offer detailed instructions in their Help menu.

6. Download link

Here is the download link TEXHelpers. The present version of pdfselect is 2.5.

7. Links

Home page, Flashmode, TEXHelpers, TEX Switcher, pdfselect, TEX Scripts, Books, Preprints, Former Students, Veranstaltungen, Lecture Notes

Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Institut für Angewandte Mathematik, Im Neuenheimer Feld 294, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany

URL: http://www.math.uni-heidelberg.de/studinfo/gerhardt/