Acrobat forms

[DigiCorn]

Here's an interesting one... I have a job created by the forms department on another floor. It's a certificate with the honoree's name printed on it. I have 47 different files. Rather than open each one and select, "print to Microsoft pdf" (to flatten it) or have to open each file individually, I thought I would combine them all into a single document, however, when I do this it sees the variable Acrobat form field as the same and changes the name on all 47 pages. Any ideas, or do I just have to bite it and open and flatten each one? I have no RIP or imposition software, so it's pretty much a direct to print situation.

[David]

if you combined them in Acrobat, it will use the same form field over and over (Field#1 is the same on pdf 1 and pdf 2, pdf 3, etc). If you combined them in Indesign, you may have a better chance.

no easy way to do it in Acrobat other than to flatten and remove basically the form fields then do the combine.

You might be able to set up an action in Acrobat to do the heavy lifting (flattening).

[DigiCorn]

The problem is they are individual files... 50 of them (up from 47) now. Which means I have to hand place 50 files from different folders. Is there a batch mass import option in ID? I'll be looking soon, but I have a meeting this morning...

[David]

One way...

You will need to make a blank Indesign file with 50 pages.
Then move it aside, go to your finder window and select your 50 pdf files and drag & drop onto the blank ID file.
Place the 1st pdf on pg 1, go to pg 2, click to drop, go to pg 3, click & drop, continue for the balance of the pdf files.

[DigiCorn]

I did it a bit different. I made a 50 page document in ID (A4 w/.125" bleed). Then I Ctrl-D (Windows) and selected all the files in the folder. I checked the box for placement options and selected bleed. I okayed the options for all 50 pages (clicked, "OK," 50 times). Then I minimized the display slightly in ID, and placed the pdfs page by page in the upper left hand corner (snap). Wrote a new PDF 50 pages A4 size + .125" bleed (no marks). Then I wrote a PDF fixup to resize all 50 pages to 8.5x11 + .125" bleed and added marks on a 12x9 canvas and I'm done. Once I actually sat down and did it, it took about 10-15 minutes, with 5-10 minutes being altering the PDF fixup to make the correct sizes.

[Tracy]

a bit late in the game, but you could of combined the files in acro
and multi page import in indy
rough week last week

[David]

if you combined them in Acrobat, it will use the same form field over and over (Field#1 is the same on pdf 1 and pdf 2, pdf 3, etc).

a bit late in the game, but you could of combined the files in acro
and multi page import in indy
rough week last week

nope

[Tracy]

Nope? 
never mind I went back and read the post

[DigiCorn]

To keep the form field unique, the only way to combine the files is in an Acrobat Portfolio, but it still will only export 1 page at a time and print only one page at a time. The only way to unite them to a single file was to hand place individually into ID. Then you could use the PDF fixup to fix the A4 page size to 8.5x11 all at once. Remember - I don't have PitStop.

[DCurry]

Another option for getting them all into one InDesign doc is to use Data Merge and treat it like a variable data job. You would just need to create a list of the file names (easily done) and use that as a data file and pull in the PDFs as a variable image.

If they all live in different directories that might be a problem, but maybe you copy them somewhere to get them in one folder.

(I know you already solved your problem - just spitballing for next time!)

[DigiCorn]

Another option for getting them all into one InDesign doc is to use Data Merge and treat it like a variable data job. You would just need to create a list of the file names (easily done) and use that as a data file and pull in the PDFs as a variable image.

If they all live in different directories that might be a problem, but maybe you copy them somewhere to get them in one folder.

(I know you already solved your problem - just spitballing for next time!)

I thought about that option too, but figured it'd be faster to place than to type.

[DCurry]

No typing required. Get all the PDFs in a folder, select all, copy. Open Excel and paste. It will paste the file names. 

[Tracy]

wow that sounds awesome 
I may have questions I'm going to try this soon

[DigiCorn]

No typing required. Get all the PDFs in a folder, select all, copy. Open Excel and paste. It will paste the file names.

I'm in SDP training all week, but I did spend a second and tried this. No dice.

[DCurry]

Weird. I've literally done it hundreds of times. Maybe I glossed over a step - have to have an open Excel doc and your cursor in a cell.  

You can also paste into a text editor like BBEdit. Don't try with TextEdit, though, because it will paste the actual files instead of the names.