Method for renumber pages within a PDF document?

[samoht]

Is there a method for renumber pages within a PDF document with Tracker? I am interested in having the page counter at the bottom of the reader to match the page number of the document. Sometimes when scanning a book or document the book's physical page number will not match the page number shown for the PDF file due to blank pages or other roman numeral numbered pages in the document. If I remember correctly there was a method in Adobe for doing this. Is there something similar for PDF Xchange?

[John - Tracker Supp]

Our PDF-Tools product will do this and you can download a demo version here :

www.tracker-software.com/PDFT4.zip

[samoht]

Paul - thanks for the reply and suggestion. I tried the demo, but it didn't do quite what I wanted. I probably wasn't clear enough in my original post. What I would like is when you have scanned a book with an index you can modify the "virtual" page numbers to match those in the index. So that when you search with an index page number it will find the correct page.

Do appreciate the reply and suggestion.

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi again samoht,

I think we are on the same page. John's comment that you can do this in PDF-Tools is correct. Take a look at this article: https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowled ... -PDF-Tools

It will allow you to change the printed numbers on the page such that they match the page numbers in the PDF navigation controls. It does this my putting new numbers that mask out the old. You have quite a bit of control over the placement of these numbers so as to be sure to mask out the old ones.

Is that indeed what you are looking to do?

hth

[jrodman]

No, that functionality in PDF Tools is clearly not what is needed by the asker, nor by me.

There seems to be a lot of confusion around the fact that PDFs do not require that the internal format page numbers go from 1-N, but may consist of a set of discontinuous behaviors. For example you can have a document which goes from A-Q, then I-IV then 92-104, and then has 15 pages without numbers.

A lot of software is sort of broken around this, and tends to assume that all PDFS go 1, 2, 3, so they will have strange UI issues like when you say to go to page 1 they go to page A.

However, it's pretty important functionality so that you can correctly label prefaces and such to not be part of the numbered set of pages so as to match the document. Other cases include collections, when, for example, you are pulling in discontinuous pages from a larger text, say pages 50-60 and then 100-120. You need to be able to have the numbered pages in the PDF format be 50-60, and 100-120, so that the linking and searching functions can work correctly.

The functionality in the PDF tools is about editing the *text of the page* so that the numbers are either altered to the desired numbers in the printed or displayed output, or additional page numbers are written onto the existing virtual pages.

This is *not helpful* in most editing scenarios. If the PDF was originally authored as a PDF and you are the author it can help for quick mass-edits in scenarios where your originating application is not very flexible, but even then it is prone to problems:

* It may adjust the pages numbers in the corner, but it cannot possibly understand how to adjust all the page number references in the text, leading to *more* inconsistencies
* Drawing additional page numbers onto the already formatted page may collide with or obscure existing content

But that's not the big deal. The big deal is that in scenarios like combining of the works of others or working with scanned documents this is completely useless. The tool cannot automatically remove the scanned page numbers, and even if it could that wouldn't necessarily be desirable. Leaving the text in its original form is often useful or in some cases of paramount importance.

But that's all fine, because PDF has a very simple mechanism for describing sets of numbering ranges that any reasonable editor should support. Worse, the lack of support opens up PDF Editor to unintentionally degrade PDFs it processes by modifying their existing labelling schemes.

For a 30 dollar tool, this might be excusable, but at the over 80$ price point for PDF Editor pro, it's simply a glaring omission.

In the PDF Tools product, the advertising is actively misleading about what the tool can and cannot do, as is the documentation. It would be superior to describe what is offered as "Page number stamping", which means that page numbers are being drawn onto the page. The virtual catalog edits being requested here are sometimes called "Page renumbering" and sometimes "Page labelling".

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello jrodman,

Page numbers and page labels are different things. In the way the original question was asked it seems like what is needed is to change/add some contents on the actual page that will illustrate it's number (in whatever notation that is). There are also page labels in the PDF documents, and if you go to Edit -> Preferences -> Page Display you can check a box for "Use Logical Page numbers" - is this what you are after?

Regards,
Stefan

[samoht]

Stefan - Assume your comment ref "References. page display" is for the newer PDF Xchange version and not the 2.5.214 version?

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Thomas,

That's correct - the ability to properly recognize and use page labels was added the the Editor (Version 3 of the Viewer). This can be downloaded from here, if you don't already have it installed:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFXVE3.zip

Hope that helps!