Sort Layers by Name in PDF

Post Reply
ChritianK
Member
Posts: 43
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 10:57 am

Sort Layers by Name in PDF

Post by ChritianK »

Hi,
I'd like to made a flow that output from a PDF with layers individual PDFs for each layers flatten with the default layer.
The PDFs are naming with the originalname+layername.

So do you think there is a way to select layers from PDF, store it, and then restore it for naming individual PDFs ?

Thanks a lot,

Christian
ChritianK
Member
Posts: 43
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 10:57 am

Re: Sort Layers by Name in PDF

Post by ChritianK »

In fact, try to made something like Prinergy Workflow with Layered PDF versioning but with Enfocus Switch and modules
Padawan
Advanced member
Posts: 358
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2017 8:48 pm
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Sort Layers by Name in PDF

Post by Padawan »

I think something like this should theoretically work, although I didn't try it myself to verify:

1 Use PitStop Server to get an XML report from all layers used in the PDF
You can do this using an action list which has the "Gather layer information" action, or to enable the "Layers" section in the general section of a preflight report.
This step should give an XML file containing all names of all layers.

2 Use an XSLT translation or a Switch Script to take the XML containing all layer names and split it so you have one XML for each layer.

3 Make copies of the job according to the amount of layers, attach one of the splitted XML's to each copy as an XML dataset

4 Send each copy to a PitStop Server element. Using variable processing you can give the layer name to an Action List. That Action List can then remove all objects which are not on the layer with that name.

5 You end up with a PDF file for each layer, only having the content of that layer.
ChritianK
Member
Posts: 43
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 10:57 am

Re: Sort Layers by Name in PDF

Post by ChritianK »

Thx for your answer Padawan,
It's a good idea, I'll try to do something like that.
Have a nice day.
freddyp
Advanced member
Posts: 1008
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:53 pm

Re: Sort Layers by Name in PDF

Post by freddyp »

This is now available as a free app on the Enfocus Appstore:
https://www.enfocus.com/en/appstore/pro ... pdf-layers

What Padawan describes is indeed theoretically correct, but not reliable in all situations with the v2 XML reports generated by PitStop Server (PDF's with a tree structure of layers, PDF's with processing step layers, the order of the layers was not always correct). With the new v3 reports created by PitStop Server 2018 this has been addressed. I found it funny and frustrating at the time of your post because I had just created the app but I could not let you know yet as the app depends on PitStop Server 2018. It was released on Tuesday, and the app yesterday.
Zoranj
Member
Posts: 107
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2016 7:37 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Sort Layers by Name in PDF

Post by Zoranj »

Freddy, this sounds like something I could use, however I am getting message:
"App 'Split PDF layers' cannot be loaded because it is not signed correctly"
It does not load into apps.
freddyp
Advanced member
Posts: 1008
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:53 pm

Re: Sort Layers by Name in PDF

Post by freddyp »

For other users of the forum: Zoran has confirmed in the mean time that this problem is now solved.

Freddy
Post Reply