Acrobat/Reader -- Advanced Add Header/Footer Text

Direct purchase using PayPal ($75 only per license)!   Update (13/12/2017): Another new feature in this tool! It's now possible to use it as a part of an Action in Acrobat Pro to process multiple files using the same settings.

Update (31/01/2017): Yet another new feature added! It's now also possible to use the page number in the group of pages being processed. For example, if you select to add your header to just the odd pages then instead of using 1, 3, 5, etc. you can refer to them as 1, 2, 3.

Update (03/12/2016): Two new features added to this too: You can now specify just the total number of pages in the file as a parameter, and also specify the distance of the text from the edge of the page.

(The new script dialog)

Update (26/04/2016): It's now possible to add not just the page number, but also the page label.

Update (04/02/2015): Now available is a free demo version of this tool, which will allow you to test it before buying it. This demo version will only add the header/footer to the first page of the document.

Update (04/06/2014): New feature added to this script that allows you to insert various Metadata properties of the file into the header/footer text. They are:

• Title
• Author
• Subject
• Keywords
• Creator
• Producer

Update (27/02/2014): I've added a new feature that allows you to insert the file's creation date, in the format of your choosing, into the header/footer text as well.

This new tool is an improved version of the built-in Add Header & Footer command that you can find in Acrobat. The reason it's improved is because it can be used in the free Adobe Reader, and also it contains some additional features, not available in the original version.

Some of these features are:
- The ability to insert the file's name, with or without the .pdf extension text to the text
- The ability to insert the full file path to the text
- The ability to lock the added texts after adding them, so they can't be edited (by someone using Reader)
- The ability to set the added texts as printable or as non-printable.

In addition, you have all the usual features like selecting the text's location on the page (right/left/center and header/footer), setting its appearance (font, size, color, background color), selecting to which pages to add the texts, inserting the current date to the text in various formats, inserting the current pages number (on its own, or in addition to the total number of pages), etc.

So for example: We have a file that we want to add a header to. We just open it in Reader XI and click the button added by the script under the Extended panel on the right:

(click to enlarge)

The dialog window that pops open allows you to specify the settings for the Header or Footer that you want to add to the file. Notice that in the one below I've added the file's name, the current date in a specific format, and also a page number:

(click to enlarge)

 
The results of adding the Header can be seen on the top of the first and second pages in this screenshot:

(click to enlarge)

(New feature: inserting the page label into the header or footer)

The page label is located in the top-left corner of the pages

IMPORTANT NOTE: To use this script in Reader requires that you either use Reader XI, or if an earlier version of Reader is used the file must have the right to add comments applied to it.

For more information about this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Print or Extract Pages from CSV Search Results

NEW: Direct purchase using PayPal ($65 per license)!
Update (22/06/2017): A free demo version of this tool is now available here. It can be used to extract/print up to 3 pages from the search results.

One of the nice new features in Acrobat X is the ability to save the results of searching a PDF file to a CSV file. But what to do with this file once you have it?

This script will read such a CSV file (either in Acrobat X or in a later version), and will print only the pages which contain a match, or extract the pages where these results are located as a new file.

IMPORTANT: This tool can only process the results of a search in a single file, not from a folder or a Catalog.

For more information about this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Print Multiple Pages Per Sheet

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only per license)!

Update (16/02/2021): Now available, a free DEMO version of this tool, that will print up to 3 pages.

Update (12/09/2016): It's now possible to specify any custom page size you wish!

The new script dialog, with the custom page size option

One of the biggest differences between using Adobe Acrobat on a Windows computer and on a Mac is that the virtual Adobe PDF printer is not available on the latter. This means that the option to print a multiple pages from a PDF file to a single sheet is not available to Mac users, which is a shame as it is very handy when you want to create a summary or a hand-out.

This problem is now easily solved using my latest tool, which allows anyone to print as many pages as they want to a single page. And after printing you can save the generated file as a new PDF, so you don't have just a physical copy of it, but a digital one as well!

Here's how it works. After purchasing and installing the script a new option is added to the File menu, just under the Print command (the screenshots below are from a Windows machine, but it will be the same on a Mac, of course):

The new menu item under File (click to enlarge)

You're then prompted to select which pages to print, as well as the layout of the generated pages, their paper size, whether to include the page borders on the print-out and whether to close the new file after it's printed:

The settings dialog of the script

When you press OK in the dialog above, the new file is created and the Print dialog is automatically opened, ready to print the newly created file (notice that there are 4 original pages on the first page in the preview):

The Print dialog with multiple pages per sheet

After you printed the file, if you didn't select to close it automatically, you will be able to save it, edit it, sent it to others, etc., just like any other PDF.

The resulting file

For more information about this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat / Reader -- Print Every X Page

Direct purchase using PayPal ($30 only per license)!
Important: This script is only compatible with Acrobat/Reader version XI or higher!

This new tool allows you to easily print a subset of pages in a PDF file that you can't otherwise do, either in Adobe Acrobat or in Adobe (Acrobat) Reader.
Let's say you want to print every third page in a 800-page file. Instead of manually entering the page numbers into the Print dialog of the application (and then discovering it will only accept 100 characters!), you can use this tool to easily and quickly generate the pages list that you want to print.

So here we have a file with 805 pages and we want to print each 3rd page, starting from page 5 and ending with page 800, for example:

The file we want to print and the new button added by the script, in Adobe Acrobat

As you can see, the script added a new button to the Tools menu on the right.
If you use it in Reader it will be added under the Extended panel:

The same file and the script's button, as it appears in Adobe Reader

So we now click the button, and this dialog box appears:

The script's dialog window

In this box we can specify which X page to print or not to print (in this case we want to print every third page, so we enter "3"), and from which page number to start printing (page 5, in this case) and until which page number to print (page 800). The default values are every second page, printing from the first to the last pages.

After we click OK the Print dialog appears, with the correct page numbers filled in:

The Print dialog with the start of the Pages list, starting with 5

The end of the Pages list, ending with 800

All we have to do now is select the other printing options we want to use and click on Print, and we're done!

If we want to print every page except for the third pages then we can select the second option in the first drop-down menu in the dialog window:

The result is the following pages list:

If you have any questions regarding this tool, you can contact me directly.

Reader -- Print Pages By Search Results

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only per license)!
This simple tool allows you to search a PDF file in the free Adobe Reader and then print just those pages where a match was found.


The search is currently case-sensitive and limited to a single word only.

Imagine you have a very large file, like this 180-pages Raspberry Pi Manual, but you're only interested in some pages from it, those that contain a certain term, such as "Install".
How do you separate those pages from the rest and focus only on them? By running this tool and printing only those pages, of course.

So after you've installed the script (instructions are included), you open the full file in Adobe Reader and click on the menu item it adds under the Extended panel:

Running the script from the Extended panel in Reader

  You then enter the search term you're interested in:

Entering the search term

The script searches all the pages of the file:

Search is in progress...

 And at the end of the process it opens up the Print dialog and populates the "Pages" field with just those page numbers that contain the search term:

The Print dialog at the end of the search. Notice the Pages list.

All you have to do now is press Print and you're done!

Of course, this tool will also work in Adobe Acrobat if installed there.

If you have any questions about this tool you can contact me directly.

Acrobat - Print or Extract Selected Pages

Direct purchase using PayPal ($50 only per license)!
Update (09/06/2014): Now this tool can also be used to extract the selected pages (only in Acrobat, of course). You select the pages just like before (using the added check-boxes) and then click a menu item that tool adds under Tools - Add-On Tools, and the selected pages are extracted to a new file.

Also improved is the mechanism that prints out the pages. If Acrobat or Reader XI are used all of the pages will be printed out in a SINGLE print command, not one by one. And if an older version is used the tool will attempt to print out the pages in as few print commands as possible by grouping the selected pages into ranges.

Sometimes you want to allow the reader of your file to easily select which pages they want to print out of it.
With this script you can automatically add a check-box to each page of your file, as well as a Print Selected Pages button.
The user can then simply tick the pages they want to print and then print them all with a single click.

The document with the check-boxes and the print button:

The print confirmation dialog:

After printing the user can reset the check-boxes, if they wish:

For more information about this tool you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Split and Sort Scanned Booklet Pages

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only per license)!
If you've ever scanned in a booklet you know that splitting the double pages and re-organizing them in the correct order can be a tedious job... Well, not anymore!
This new tool for Acrobat will split booklet pages into a single page format, and then sort them to the correct order.

The tool can handle both Left-Bound and Right-Bound files. So for example, a left-bound file that looks like this:

Will be converted to this:

Here's a real example of such a file:

(click to enlarge)

 And after running the script on it using the button it adds to Acrobat's Tools menu:

(click to enlarge)

This tools also comes with an Action (for Acrobat Pro XI only!), that can be used to process multiple files in this way with ease.

If you have any questions about this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat/Reader -- Print PDF With File Name

Direct purchase using PayPal ($25 only per license)!
Using this script it's possible to print out the file with the file-name embedded in the lower-left corner. One can select to embed the file-name on all the pages of the file, or just on the first page, or on the current page that you're viewing.

(click to enlarge)

Below is the Print dialog with the file-name highlighted in red:

(click to enlarge)

After printing the file (or canceling the Print dialog window), the embedded file-names are gone from the file and it is restored to its original state.

This script can be used both in Adobe Acrobat and in Adobe Reader. In Reader, in versions prior to XI, using the script requires that the file has the rights to add comments to it.

If you have any questions about this tool, contact me directly.

Acrobat/Reader -- Silently Print All Open PDF Files

Direct purchase using PayPal ($30 only per license)!
Using this new script you can easily and quickly print all the currently open PDF files in Acrobat or in Reader. The tool adds a new item to the Window menu that will send all the files you currently have open to the default printer.

For more information about this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat/Reader -- Print With Field Names

Direct purchase using PayPal ($25 only per license)!
Sometimes when working with a complex PDF form you want to have an indication of where each field is located. A printed copy of the form with the name of each field placed next to it can be a useful tool for that purpose, which is exactly what this tool does.

When you click on the "Print With Field Names"-button that this tool adds to Acrobat (or Reader), the file will be printed as usual, but with the names of all of the form fields just above the fields themselves (the names appear in red).

For example, this section of a PDF page:

Will look like this when we print it out:

After printing, the file is returned to its original state.  

Note: To use this tool in Reader, the file must have the right to add new form fields applied to it.

For more information about this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat -- Validate Required Fields Before Printing or Saving

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only)!

If you have a form that contain a set of required fields, they are only useful when the user wants to submit the form back to you. But what if you want to use the required feature of these fields when the form is printed as well? Or when the user tries to save it? Until now you couldn't, but with this script it becomes possible.

After running this script on a file, if someone tries to print it without filling in all the required fields, they will receive an error message and the form will print without any of the data in it. The same can be done when the file is saved.
Important: This tool won't prevent the file from being printed or saved entirely. It will just make sure it doesn't print/save with the partial data in it.

Sample files are available here.

For example, here's a standard form with some required fields:

When the user tries to print the form without filling in all the required fields, they receive this message:

The printed form is blank, but the data they already filled-in is not lost! They can continue editing the form, and when all the fields are filled-in properly, the form will print as usual.

If you have any questions regarding this tool, you can contact me directly.

Acrobat/Reader -- Print Sticky Notes

Direct purchase using PayPal ($40 only)!

One of the small annoyances of Reader is that you can't print the contents of Sticky Notes together with other markups and comments, it just prints the sticky note icon instead, which isn't very helpful...
So I created this script that allows you to print the contents of your stickies together with your file. The only draw-back is that the file must have the Extended Reader Rights to manipulate comments for it to work.

Here's a page with some sticky notes:

And here's how it looks like in the Print dialog after pressing the Print Sticky Notes icon in the Tools menu (notice the text is actually visible):

For more information about this tool, or if you're interested in purchasing it, you can contact me directly.