(Archived) Importing .pdf documents

[GadgetBoy 1]

My scanner only scans pages one at a time (unlike my office scanner, where I can place a 20 page document into the feeder and I am delivered a 20 page .pdf). I wind up with multiple .pdf documents on my scanner's memory card.

What would be the best way (and cheapest) to combine the multiple documents into one large document before uploading to Evernote?

In the past, when importing documents, if I highlight the block of documents and right click and then click send to Evernote, sometimes they would upload as one note with multiple attachments and other time it would create an individual note for each page. It seems that now it is the latter - but I am not sure if I was doing something differently.

Just trying to understand the steps.

Thanks in advance,

GB

[James M. 15]

I think the easiest solution would be to find some software which will scan multiple pages into a single document, it might even be possible given your current software if you can find the configuration. I believe there are also PDF editors which will let you combine multiple PDF documents into one. You might also want to try the online PDF merging tool from Neevia at http://convert.neevia.com/pdfmerge/ although it only appears to work with 5 documents at once. I routinely use their PDF compression tool, also free, which will compress documents up to 5 Mb in size. Pay options are available without these limits, also.

[debns 5]

Not an Evernote-based solution, but I use PDFTools, which is free software and available here: http://sheelapps.com/index.php?p=PDFTools.HomePage&action=view

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

I haven't tried this service yet, but if I did not have my ScanSnap, I would be sorely tempted: Shoeboxed

http://evernote.com/trunk/items/shoeboxed?lang=en&layout=default&source=home

They might be able to do what you want

[gazumped 12,042]

There's currently a 'feature' of Evernote's operation that might suit you down to the ground. If you import a bunch of PDFs via an Import Folder, you'll get a separate note for each one. Drag and drop a bunch of PDFs directly onto a note or notebook however, and you'll get all those PDFs in the one note.

There are a couple of potential drawbacks for multi-page documents as separate PDFs - they'll OCR, index and search fine (subject to the usual restrictions), and they'll display as one long 'ladder' of pages - in some ways better than the 1 page at a time of the normal multi-page booklet.

But. Printing will s.u.c.k if you need to get a complete document, and you may have trouble initially having all the right pages, but not necessarily in the right order.

The best option is probably stitching the files together as one PDF - most PDF editors should do that.

[GadgetBoy 1]

I tried PDFTools and wasn't a fan. I think it would be nice to highlight a block of .pdf files, right click on them, and merge them. A dialog box could open and you could re-arrange the files if necessary.

[gazumped 12,042]

Were you thinking Evernote would offer you the option to merge files? It could be useful I guess, but it's not exactly core 'external brain' activity and Evernote tends to resist adding bells and whistles. And I'm sorry if I made it sound a major problem that files might not appear in the right order - it's usually a fairly easy cut and re-paste or drag/ drop activity to fix that, but of course that depends on how many files you're starting with...

I'd imagine there are some inbuilt rules about importing a list of files - sorting by names, dates, or list order - but you'd need to experiment to work that out.

[EdH 1,670]

I use a product called "Adolix Split & Merge" that allows you to merge and split PDF files to your heart's content. http://www.adolix.com/split-merge-pdf/

The free version is limited to only merging 5 pages at a time, and it only looks at pages 1-50 for splitting. Honestly, I've never hit those limits so I just use the freebie.

[Jpitersion 0]

Hi,

I use Kernel for PDF split and merge tool. Split them effectively and efficiently with various parameters like split the PDF file by Page, by Page Range, by Size (KB), by even pages and by odd pages.