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Concatenating PDFs

Ξ July 23rd, 2008 | → 0 Comments |
∇ Tools | ∇ Concatenate, Ghostscript, PDF, Tools |

A few days ago I had to scan a paper certificate to send it in a digital form. The paper certificate had 3 pages which I promptly scanned into 3 separate PDFs as the required format was PDF.

Then came the hard part, I could only submit 1 file which meant that had to concatenate all 3 original files. Of course that for this I could use some kind of PDF tool (such as acrobat writer), but as any respected Linux user the way forward was to use “the shell”…

So, the solution was to use Ghostscript. The tool is able to “print” a sequence of files into a unique PDF file. Just use it as follows:

   gs -q -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite

         -sOutputFile=out.pdf in1.pdf in2.pdf in3.pdf [more-input-files]

Yesterday, BOHICA day!

Ξ July 23rd, 2008 | → 0 Comments |
∇ Humor | ∇ BOHICA, Definition, Expression |

Yesterday was not an excelent day! The best way to describe it is an expression that I learn a few days ago.

Bend Over, Here It Comes Again

(BOHICA) An utterance of frustration by computer support personnel who anticipate being told (usually via phone) to do something that can't be done, by a boss who doesn't know his ass from deep center field about what he's asking his minions to do.


The actual event went well (it wasn’t wonderful, but it went well) and the final result was as expected, but the feeling before (and during) the discussion is very well described by BOHICA.