Merge PDF files command line with bookmarks - sql-server

Question

I am trying to accomplish a simple task of merging PDF files to one PDF. And I want the resulting PDF file to have Bookmarks to each file from the filename. And preferably i would like to have a free solution for this.
I am on a windows system and want to execute this from either command line or even better from MSSQL.
The thing is that i will create PDF files of orders from an ERP system with Crystal Reports. An stored procedure will create these PDF files. After that i want to take selected PDFs and create a new merged PDF of those and the merged PDF should have each order number (from the filename) as a bookmark. So that you easily can jump to an order number if you are searching for a specific one.
And as I said preferably free solutions, if not available I am ready to code my own merge program in for example C# or similar.

Answer 1

I think you would need Adobe Acrobat for this, at a bare minimum. Or, if you don't have that and you don't want to pay for it, you can convert all PDFs to TXT files, and merge all TXT files. This sounds a bit cumbersome, but actually, the easiest thing to do . . . maybe . . . is to convert all those TXT files into Excel files, and merge those. That shouldn't be hard at all. Here is a script to convert all TXT files into Excel files.
Private Declare Function SetCurrentDirectoryA Lib _
"kernel32" (ByVal lpPathName As String) As Long
Public Function ChDirNet(szPath As String) As Boolean
'based on Rob Bovey's code
Dim lReturn As Long
lReturn = SetCurrentDirectoryA(szPath)
ChDirNet = CBool(lReturn <> 0)
End Function
Sub Get_TXT_Files()
'For Excel 2000 and higher
Dim Fnum As Long
Dim mysheet As Worksheet
Dim basebook As Workbook
Dim TxtFileNames As Variant
Dim QTable As QueryTable
Dim SaveDriveDir As String
Dim ExistFolder As Boolean
'Save the current dir
SaveDriveDir = CurDir
'You can change the start folder if you want for
'GetOpenFilename,you can use a network or local folder.
'For example ChDirNet("C:\your_path_here\")
'It now use Excel's Default File Path
ExistFolder = ChDirNet("C:\your_path_here\\Text\")
If ExistFolder = False Then
MsgBox "Error changing folder"
Exit Sub
End If
TxtFileNames = Application.GetOpenFilename _
(filefilter:="TXT Files (*.txt), *.txt", MultiSelect:=True)
If IsArray(TxtFileNames) Then
On Error GoTo CleanUp
With Application
.ScreenUpdating = False
.EnableEvents = False
End With
'Add workbook with one sheet
Set basebook = Workbooks.Add(xlWBATWorksheet)
'Loop through the array with txt files
For Fnum = LBound(TxtFileNames) To UBound(TxtFileNames)
'Add a new worksheet for the name of the txt file
Set mysheet = Worksheets.Add(After:=basebook. _
Sheets(basebook.Sheets.Count))
On Error Resume Next
mysheet.Name = Right(TxtFileNames(Fnum), Len(TxtFileNames(Fnum)) - _
InStrRev(TxtFileNames(Fnum), "\", , 1))
On Error GoTo 0
With ActiveSheet.QueryTables.Add(Connection:= _
"TEXT;" & TxtFileNames(Fnum), Destination:=Range("A1"))
.TextFilePlatform = xlWindows
.TextFileStartRow = 1
'This example use xlDelimited
'See a example for xlFixedWidth below the macro
.TextFileParseType = xlDelimited
'Set your Delimiter to true
.TextFileTabDelimiter = True
.TextFileSemicolonDelimiter = False
.TextFileCommaDelimiter = False
.TextFileSpaceDelimiter = False
'Set the format for each column if you want (Default = General)
'For example Array(1, 9, 1) to skip the second column
.TextFileColumnDataTypes = Array(1, 9, 1)
'xlGeneralFormat General 1
'xlTextFormat Text 2
'xlMDYFormat Month-Day-Year 3
'xlDMYFormat Day-Month-Year 4
'xlYMDFormat Year-Month-Day 5
'xlMYDFormat Month-Year-Day 6
'xlDYMFormat Day-Year-Month 7
'xlYDMFormat Year-Day-Month 8
'xlSkipColumn Skip 9
' Get the data from the txt file
.Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False
End With
ActiveSheet.QueryTables(1).Delete
Next Fnum
'Delete the first sheet of basebook
On Error Resume Next
Application.DisplayAlerts = False
basebook.Worksheets(1).Delete
Application.DisplayAlerts = True
On Error GoTo 0
CleanUp:
ChDirNet SaveDriveDir
With Application
.ScreenUpdating = True
.EnableEvents = True
End With
End If
End Sub