Export afpub as separate PDF-pages through Designer sliсes

[anto]

I need to make 200 questionnaires through data merging, and then preferably export them as separate PDF-pages.
I think the easiest way to do this would be through Designer sliсes.
For this, I don't know how to do certain things.

1. When I open a PDF in Designer, for example, I can import all the pages and have them in view:

When I open the afpub file in Designer I have only one page and I can navigate through each other.
How can I make it look like when I open a PDF file?

 

2. Can I select, for example, 2 or 3 pages and export them to one file?

[walt.farrell]

As you're doing Data Merge, you're probably in Publisher. I'm not sure Data Merge works with Artboards. Is that what you're using?

[anto]

Just now, walt.farrell said:

As you're doing Data Merge, you're probably in Publisher. I'm not sure Data Merge works with Artboards. Is that what you're using?

Everything will be created in Publisher. Then I want to open the afpub file in Designer to export individual pages as separate PDFs.

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, anto said:

Everything will be created in Publisher. Then I want to open the afpub file in Designer to export individual pages as separate PDFs.

Thanks. Yes, that will work.

[anto]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks. Yes, that will work.

But I don't know how to display afpub pages as shown in the picture above to automatically create slices for them, i.e. how to create slices from pages instead of layers.

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, anto said:

But I don't know how to display afpub pages as shown in the picture above to automatically create slices for them.

You won't be displaying afpub pages. Sorry; I misinterpreted what you wrote, which omits a step.

1. Create base .afpub document.
2. Run Data Merge, generating a new .afpub document.
3. Export it as a PDF.
4. Open the PDF in Designer. Now you have Artboards named Page 1, Page 2, etc.
5. Use the Export Persona as normal to export the Artboards you want as individual PDF pages, just as with any other multi-Artboard document.

[anto]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Export it as a PDF.

I just wanted to skip the step of creating a PDF).

[thomaso]

28 minutes ago, anto said:

I think the easiest way to do this would be through Designer sliсes.

What advantage do you see for your data merge result in AD? – In APub's export dialog you can define certain pages for export, individual or ranges or combinations (and choose spreads or pages), for instance:

Isn't such a selective export what you want to achieve?

[walt.farrell]

Just now, anto said:

I just wanted to skip the step of creating a PDF).

You can't, if you want to use Slices and the Export Persona. You need Artboards, not Pages, for that. So to use that approach you must generate a consolidated PDF, then break it into Artboards using Designer (or into separate PDF files using a PDF utility).

[anto]

3 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Isn't such a selective export what you want to achieve?

But if I have 200 pages and I need to enter each page, i.e. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,.....199,200.
Designer does it automatically.

[thomaso]

If you don't enter page numbers in APub then you get the entire document exported. But you mentioned before " to export individual pages as separate PDFs". This can neither AD nor APub do automatically – unless you tell them what pages you want to get exported.

And, of course for a page range you would not type every single digit or number but just the first (e.g. 1) and the last (e.g. 200) with simply a - (minus char) in between, like so: "1-200". Whereas you can use a comma to separate different ranges that you want to export in one PDF, like so: "1-10,24-33,40-45,190".

[AlanPickup]

I do this frequently and use https://www.ilovepdf.com/split_pdf which is free, only done up to about 36 pages at present

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, thomaso said:

But you mentioned before " to export individual pages as separate PDFs". This can neither AD nor APub do automatically – unless you tell them what pages you want to get exported.

The Export Persona in Photo or Designer will do that automatically for Slices. File > Export will not, and that's all that's available in Publisher.

[anto]

6 minutes ago, thomaso said:

This can neither AD nor APub do automatically – unless you tell them what pages you want to get exported.

I tried to do this with a PDF file. Designer does it. It exports PDFs as separate PDF-pages. To do this, you need to select all the layers, create slices from them, and then select all of them in Slices panel and click Export Slices.

[thomaso]

59 minutes ago, anto said:

exports PDFs as separate PDF-pages.

Ah, it appears I was misunderstanding "separate PDF-pages" whereas your goal is to get several PDF files, one for each page.