Quickly Place Multi-page PDF

[okhick]

Is there an easy way to place a multipage PDF? I know I can open a PDF and I know you can place a PDF on a spread and select a page, but is there a more efficient way of doing this? I work in music publishing and I am constantly importing scores created in music engraving programs. InDesign has both a script that will place each page on a new spread and also a way to load the cursor with the entire file and it will place the next page every time you click. Are either (or another) of these techniques available here?

[Pauls]

Other than loading the PDF I don't believe there is another way.

[craigmc]

Wondering if I am missing something. How can you place a multiple page PDF? I just get the first page when I use place.

[Patrick Connor]

@craigmc

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums  

If you open the PDF you will get all the pages but placing a PDF will only "place" one of the pages in the PDF. Hope that is clear.

[okhick]

If you click on the placed PDF you can select a page in the context menu on top.

[Engineer]

Are there any news about this topic? I usually need to place lots of external PDFs in my documents (Some with more than 100 pages). So it's kind of impossible to place every page by hand.

In Indesign I'm using the script for multipage import.

Are there any plans to implement such features in the near future?

[Patrick Connor]

@Engineer

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums

there is no news on this feature at the moment

[Goran62]

Hello! Are there any news regarding this topic? Are there any plans to implement importing multipage pdf into affinity publication in one or two steps? If I am correct, the only option in retail version is still to create multiple frames of same pdf on different pages and select visibility of individual pdf pages in them, which is painful if there are dozens and dozens of pages to place from different pdf's. Is there a solution for this problem in upcoming Publisher update?

[Patrick Connor]

@Goran62

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums  

I have not heard of any news on this, but I have moved this popular request into the feature requests section of these forums, which the developers review. 

[Goran62]

Thank you!

[RalphGL]

 

On 8/31/2018 at 6:43 PM, okhick said:

If you click on the placed PDF you can select a page in the context menu on top.

Thanks, you are right, this feature is available, but only after selecting the pdf file itself in the layers menu. Selecting the frame with placed pdf in it did not show the page selector!
It is not a missing feature, but a difficulty with user interface.
 

[2weiklang]

+1 to this feature. It’s literally the only missing link to make my company drop InDesign entirely. 
 

please allow placing multi-page PDFs, or allow scripting so we can write a script that does that 😅

[hds]

+1 to this feature. I'm loving Designer and Photo for the most part, but literally the only thing I wan't to do with Publisher is combine Cover Letter, CV and arrange a portfolio of images into one PDF. I need to do it for job applications constantly. It is possible, but painful. 

[ElineR]

I don't know if this would help, but for me the option to merge documents as stated here: 
https://affinity.help/publisher/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Advanced/mergeDocument.html?title=Merge%20documents

works perfectly. (Document >> add pages from file)
You might have to select your files one by one, and is slower than adobe acrobat, but it does the job... 

[Brother G]

On 6/6/2021 at 4:54 PM, ElineR said:

I don't know if this would help, but for me the option to merge documents as stated here: 
https://affinity.help/publisher/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Advanced/mergeDocument.html?title=Merge%20documents

works perfectly. (Document >> add pages from file)
You might have to select your files one by one, and is slower than adobe acrobat, but it does the job... 

This worked for me today, awesome tip. Thanks ElineR for sharing.

[Goran62]

Unfortunately, pages placed into document this way are interpreted into strings of text and you can not shrink them or manipulate in any way. One can make group out of text strings on all pages and shrink / expand pages that way, but that is not quick solution if you have bunch of long pdf files to merge. And ... fonts are changed if you don't have them on your machine.

[Brother G]

Your right Goran62, it does not work for every situation. If you are looking for some serious PDF editing solutions you will
have to go to a third-party plugin for PDF’s or application. As a former pre-press operator I used one on a regular basis.

[Goran62]

Sure - we use Acrobat pro all the time as well, but I am not talking about "serious pdf editing" - just assembling various pdf's into one publication with basic editing i.e. move or stretch imported pages or artwork, functions we had in Pagemaker decades ago, without font issues. Publisher is app we bought for merging creative materials in the first place - creative work in Publisher came second as that is done in Designer, Photo or 3rd party apps. I develop some workarounds for quicker placing multipage pdf's into our publications and job is done but it is not as easy and quick as it is in our old copy of InDesign, sadly.

[OzNate]

I agree that placing multipage PDF would be great as we used to do in InDesign.

[Msmeraglia]

This is possible and very quick. It actually works just fine. You can simply 'Prefer Linked' resources on new document creation, near the page size etc. (or you can make them linked later on in Document->Resource Manager) but you simply use the place image tool and place that multi-page pdf. Then you can copy/paste the placement frame and just select another page of the pdf from the 'Spread:' option at the top of the screen. From there you can still crop/zoom the frame etc. If you look in Document->Resource Manager, you'll see each of the placement usages are linked under the single pdf file. if you WANT to you can embed each image directly but its better to just link the one pdf.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Msmeraglia

[Goran62]

I am familiar with that solution, but it is not "quick". Pages from multipage pdf's (50 pages, 100 ...) should be placed on Publisher's pages automatically in autoflow style, as it is done in ID. There is a lot of clicking involved in your solution, when you have to combine few 50+ page pdf's into one publication. IMO one should also choose the range of imported pages and type of background (transparent or white) ... 

[Msmeraglia]

I see so you are looking more-so to merge documents, which is different than the use case i was using this technique for.

[Old Bruce]

On 3/8/2022 at 11:39 PM, Goran62 said:

I am familiar with that solution, but it is not "quick". Pages from multipage pdf's (50 pages, 100 ...) should be placed on Publisher's pages automatically in autoflow style, as it is done in ID. There is a lot of clicking involved in your solution, when you have to combine few 50+ page pdf's into one publication. IMO one should also choose the range of imported pages and type of background (transparent or white) ... 

Have you tried using Add Pages from File...

Do a right click on the page in the Pages panel. I can then load up page 3 through 65 (example only) from a 123 page pdf.

[Goran62]

Sure I am ... but this way, you get pdf pages interpreted and paragraphs broken into strings, which you can not resize, not to mention fonts are changed if you don't have them on your system.

[Old Bruce]

8 hours ago, Goran62 said:

Sure I am ... but this way, you get pdf pages interpreted and paragraphs broken into strings, which you can not resize, not to mention fonts are changed if you don't have them on your system.

Well to be honest I do try to discourage people from using PDFs as anything other than an end product, PDFs are not an interchange format. If at all possible deal with Text files not PDFs. Fewer problems and far more control results in a better product.