Merge scribbles with PDF

[Bert]

Hi all,

After waiting a while in vain for iRex to provide a program to merge scribbles with the pdf, I decided to write my own. (I found a perl-script somewhere on this forum, but I didn't want to install perl just to run a little tool like that.)

The attached app is written in java, and uses the iText library for the merging process (just like some other apps on this forum). It can merge the file while keeping the manifest, create a pdf with only scribbled pages (useful when when proofreading a document), change the scribble colors, ... .
You need at lava 1.4 at least, just unzip the attached zip and run the jar. (java -jar ILiadPdfScribbleMerger.jar, or on windows, you can just double-click the jar)[*]
Let me know if you find any problems!


Bert.

PS: This is my first post in this forum! I lurked around here for a few months, finally buying an iLiad myself in december ... I never posted because I never had anything useful to say, until now (I think ).

---

Updates:

• (v1.1) Support cropped pdf's
• (v1.2-1.3.1) Support Linux & Mac OSX
• (v1.4) Command line merging
• (v1.6) Preserve bookmarks etc, drag&drop files.
• (v1.7) Save color mappings (only for GUI for now - I'll do the commandline part later)
• (v1.7.5) Color mappings supported in command line + small bugfix (last used color map not always saved)
• (v1.7.6) Fixed 2 bugs related with rotated pages and cropping.
• (v1.8) Fixed a bug (corrupt pdf generated for 'scribbled pages only'), added 'open merged pdf' option.

[jæd]

Originally Posted by Bert

Hi all,

After waiting a while in vain for iRex to provide a program to merge scribbles with the pdf, I decided to write my own. (I found a perl-script somewhere on this forum, but I didn't want to install perl just to run a little tool like that.)

The attached app is written in java, and uses the iText library for the merging process (just like some other apps on this forum). It can merge the file while keeping the manifest, create a pdf with only scribbled pages (useful when when proofreading a document), change the scribble colors, ... .
You need at lava 1.4 at least, just unzip the attached zip and run the jar. (java -jar ILiadPdfScribbleMerger.jar, or on windows, you can just double-click the jar)

Let me know if you find any problems!


Bert.

PS: This is my first post in this forum! I lurked around here for a few months, finally buying an iLiad myself in december ... I never posted because I never had anything useful to say, until now (I think ).

Cool... Irex are supposed to coming out with something... Have seen this...? Its an implementation in php5 and does much the same thing... I would made a Java version, but I tend to find php is better for rapid development, and java is too much like work. (I'm a Java dev and don't like using Eclipse when I supposed to be relaxing... )

[yokos]

Originally Posted by Bert

Let me know if you find any problems!

I have one. java file starts [see screenshot], but I can't open an irex-pdf-directory as source. There is nothing to select in opened window [2nd ss].
Maybe the java binary doesn't find the 2 libraries?
I have Windows XP, jdk1.5.0_09, jre1.5.0_09, no tested on suse yet.
Nice idea to offer the replacement of colours.

[Bert]

That's a strange problem ... Are you sure that directory contains any directories?

The 'open file' dialog does absolutely no filtering (except that it only accepts directories), I was planning to filter on irex-pdf dirs directly with the file-chooser, but I couldn't find a way to do it. Eventually I just decided to accept all directories, and check if they are valid later on.

Let me show you the code which shows the dialog, so you can see why this is so strange:

...
        //show the file chooser
        JFileChooser fc = new JFileChooser();
        fc.setAcceptAllFileFilterUsed(false);
        fc.setFileSelectionMode(JFileChooser.DIRECTORIES_ONLY);
        fc.setSelectedFile(fileInput);
        FileFilter ff = new FileFilter() {
            public boolean accept(File f) {
                return f.isDirectory();
            }
            
            public String getDescription() {
                return "iRex pdf directories";
            }
        };
        fc.setFileFilter(ff);
        int nReturnValue = fc.showOpenDialog(this);
...

You can see the "iRex pdf directories" file filter is superfluous, it does the same as the JFileChooser.DIRECTORIES_ONLY selection mode.

BTW: I developed this app on Windows XP SP2, with jdk1.5.0_09, and using JRE 1.5.0_09-b03. So I see no problems there.


A temporary solution: If you can't get it to work, you could always just type the complete path in the 'source' box manually, that should work also.

[Kirys]

Originally Posted by Bert

That's a strange problem ... Are you sure that directory contains any directories?

The 'open file' dialog does absolutely no filtering (except that it only accepts directories), I was planning to filter on irex-pdf dirs directly with the file-chooser, but I couldn't find a way to do it. Eventually I just decided to accept all directories, and check if they are valid later on.

You can do it extending the java.io.FileFilter class, in the accept method you can do all the tests you need to detect if that folder is a Irex folder
then assign that class as the filter class for the dialog.

[Bert]

Originally Posted by Kirys

You can do it extending the java.io.FileFilter class, in the accept method you can do all the tests you need to detect if that folder is a Irex folder
then assign that class as the filter class for the dialog.

I know you can filter everything there, but if you accept only irex folders, navigating becomes impossible (the non-irex-folders won't be visible).
I was hoping you could disable the 'open' button when you select a non-irex-folder, but I don't know any easy solution for that. You could always extend the JFileChooser itself, but that was just too much work for that tiny problem .

[doctorwes]

It works for me, and it's very useful - thank you!

[yokos]

Hallo, Bert, I found the error, why this wasn't working with my files:
your java program wants to have directory with ".pdf" in the end of it's name.
Most of my pdf folder don't have this, because I edit manifest.xml before opening it on iLiad [-> no .pdf in directory's name.]
Even if I type the correct path of directory in the source field, your program ignores non-.pdf-in-the-end-directories.

There is one real problem: If a pdf file is cropped [for instance 20 mm on top of page] scribble notes move 20 mm above the position they were drawn, because output is a non-cropped page. With a larger visible page size the correct scribble positions get shifted with amount of cropped length.

However, a great tool.

Sample file is attached.

[templario]

Just one question to yokos, why do you need to edit the manisfest.xml before opening it ont Iliad. Maybe i´m newby on this, but i don´t have the manifest.xml before opening it, it just appears after that, isn´t it?

Thanks

[yokos]

Originally Posted by templario

Just one question to yokos, why do you need to edit the manisfest.xml before opening it ont Iliad. Maybe i´m newby on this, but i don´t have the manifest.xml before opening it, it just appears after that, isn´t it?

It's just a visual gimmick, which helps a lot to navigate better through files. All important directories & pdf files should have a cover image [no way to do it on iLiad]. Editing Title & Description tag on iLiad is much to slow.
manifest templates

[Bert]

Originally Posted by yokos

Hallo, Bert, I found the error, why this wasn't working with my files:
your java program wants to have directory with ".pdf" in the end of it's name.
Most of my pdf folder don't have this, because I edit manifest.xml before opening it on iLiad [-> no .pdf in directory's name.]
Even if I type the correct path of directory in the source field, your program ignores non-.pdf-in-the-end-directories.

There is one real problem: If a pdf file is cropped [for instance 20 mm on top of page] scribble notes move 20 mm above the position they were drawn, because output is is a non-cropped page. With a larger visible page size the correct scribble positions get shifted with amount of cropped length.

I have fixed both problems (well ... almost ).

- About the cropped PDF's: I didn't even know that was possible! However, some searching in the iText library delivered the desired results. The cropped pages from your samples are merged correctly now.
- The problem with the iRex-folders was laziness from my side: I only accepted folders ending with .pdf containing a .pdf file with an identical name. Now I accept all folders with a manifest.xml and scribble.irx in it, and search for the pdf-file in the manifest.xml file.
However, now I have another problem: some of your files contain special characters which are screwed up by windows ((like "Schöne Grüße von Vulcanus.pdf" becomes "Sch÷ne Gr³¯e von Vulcanus.pdf"). When I scan the manifest.xml file for the pdf-file I get a correct filename, but when I search for that file it isn't found (It only sees the screwed-up filename)... So these files still don't work. I'll look into that another time.

[yokos]

Originally Posted by Bert

- About the cropped PDF's: I didn't even know that was possible! However, some searching in the iText library delivered the desired results. The cropped pages from your samples are merged correctly now.

Thanks, shift of scribble notes got away. I didn't thought this would be so easy to patch.

Originally Posted by Bert

- The problem with the iRex-folders was laziness from my side: I only accepted folders ending with .pdf containing a .pdf file with an identical name. Now I accept all folders with a manifest.xml and scribble.irx in it, and search for the pdf-file in the manifest.xml file.

Thx.

Originally Posted by Bert

However, now I have another problem: some of your files contain special characters which are screwed up by windows ((like "Schöne Grüße von Vulcanus.pdf" becomes "Sch÷ne Gr³¯e von Vulcanus.pdf"). When I scan the manifest.xml file for the pdf-file I get a correct filename, but when I search for that file it isn't found (It only sees the screwed-up filename)... So these files still don't work. I'll look into that another time.

Special characters are the German "Umlaute". On a German Win XP your java program has no problems with my sample.
mmh, some hotchpotch of encodings: in manifest.xml utf-8 it becomes "Schöne Grüße von Vulcanus"; memory card/HDD fat32/ntfs; windows itself;java vm.

The function "scribbled pages only" is quite handy to get an overview what was scribbed on iLiad. Well done.

[lsz]

> Let me know if you find any problems!

I tried to use your program on a Mac with OS 10.4.8 and got the following error.

java.io.FileNotFoundException: /Volumes/KINGSTON/learning-clausal-logic.pdf\manifest.xml (No such file or directory)
at java.io.FileInputStream.open(Native Method)
at java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.jav a:106)
.....

Maybe there is a problem with the slash direction? Thanks.

[Bert]

Indeed, I used hardcoded backslashes in the code. I'm only used to programming in Windows evironments, and tend to forget the differences in other OS'es.

I removed all hardcoded backslashes, so it should work now. Can you check if everything works as it should? I don't have a Mac at hand here, so I can' check.

[lsz]

Thanks for the quick response. The [Merge in existing file, keep manifest] option now works (and is very useful!). However, the [Create New] fails to do anything and the [Replace all] gives the following error:

java.io.FileNotFoundException: /Volumes/KINGSTON/learning-clausal-logic-copy.pdf (Directory not empty)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.j ava:179)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.j ava:70)
at iliadpdfscribblemerger.ScribbleMergeForm.copyFile( ScribbleMergeForm.java:701)
at iliadpdfscribblemerger.ScribbleMergeForm.btnMergeA ctionPerformed(ScribbleMergeForm.java:688)
......


Maybe you are not creating/deleting directories in a platform independent manner? I don't know much about how this works in Java...