Re: Using org to create a TOC for a compilation of separate PDF documents

[Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us>]

John Hendy <jw.hendy@gmail.com> writes:

> I have a use case and am not sure if Org would help or not. I've
> downloaded a bunch of technical data sheets on various materials from
> a vendor. I'd like to create a "booklet" of them with a cover page
> table of contents.

You can use pdfpages for this.  There's a command for inserting page
links and everything.  There's also a booklet option for this which I
haven't used in a while.

Also, do try pdfjam.  It is the most amazing thing that has come out
of Warwick!  (And Warwick is good :)


> I can create the booklet very easily with Stapler (or similar), but am
> not sure on the best way to generate a clickable linked PDF of the
> individual materials contained in the compiled document.[1] What I'm
> not sure on is how to create a table of contents.

If you want a more hackish solution you can adapt the stuff I post in
the end for your needs.  What you'll need is just to incorporate
hyperref which I think you can do with pdfpages or perhaps even
vanilla hyperref.  Let me know if it's causing trouble 'cause I did it
some years back. . .


> Ideally, I could do something like generate a page count of each
> document and then use this to create the page numbers I'd use to
> create links to, which I thought I could do with Org. Even better
> would be to have [back to top] links as well, since this will end up
> being a multi-hundred page booklet (~100 documents of 2-4 pages each).

Go out should be easy.  Page count is easy. 

For a get home key you might overlay a button with tikz and
hyperref. . .  I show how to make an overlay on all sites.  You'd
somehow want to only do it on the first side perhaps.  You'd do this
by inducing to pdfpages commands and only have a pageCommand on the
first page (for instance).  

OR add hyperlinks and have a site bar/index  curtisy of hyperref.

> Is it easier to just generate a list of files and use Org to "include"
> them somehow via LaTeX instead of using Stapler to combine them?

I used to do stuff like this in LaTeX.  I'm quite happy to organize it
in Org via tables. 

I've included two examples in the following gist.  Note, I wrote them
quickly and I didn't know (and still don't) any Emacs Lisp.  The LaTeX
functions are super ugly as well, but they get stuff done.  Hopefully
you can find some inspiration.

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/5640444

–Rasmus

-- 
El Rey ha muerto. ¡Larga vida al Rey!