I'm attempting to merge set groups of pdfs, the pdf filenames being dictated elsewhere and passed to ps via input parameter, I've added defaults below to hopefully give a complete picture.
The error raised by pdftk is a failure to open the input files, if I was to run this manually without parameters it works fine so I'm a little stumped as to where I'm going wrong???
param($UniRow="144",$CC="1142033",$Pdfs="EP3058513_A.pdf EP3058512_A.pdf EP2981932_A.pdf EP2981931_A.pdf EP3100208_A.pdf")
Set-Location -Path "E:\pdfs\"
pdftk $Pdfs cat output "E:\OptedOut\pdfs\${UniRow}_${CC}.pdf"
Edit - To clarify, when I say run the above manually I mean....
Set-Location -Path "E:\pdfs\"
pdftk "EP3058513_A.pdf EP3058512_A.pdf EP2981932_A.pdf EP2981931_A.pdf EP3100208_A.pdf" cat output "E:\Reports\UPC\OptedOut\pdfs\144_1142033.pdf"
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So inside of my terminal, I created a text file inside a directory (cat > fnames.txt). My initial goal was to write some data into said file. After creating fnames.txt, the following information showed up after trying to append data to the file using (cat >> fnames.txt):
cmdlet Get-Content at command pipeline position 1
Supply values for the following parameters:
Path[0]:
Image of terminal
Does anyone know the reason of this and what it means?
The command cat is in Powershell an alias to Get-Content. The cmdlet reads information from somewhere. The error message means that Get-Content does not have an idea from where you want it to get data, so it asks you.
I have a powershell script that generates a report, and I have connected it to an io.filesystemwatcher. I am trying to improve the error handling capability. I already have the report generation function (which only takes in a filepath) within a try-catch loop that basically kills word, excel and powerpoint and tries again if it fails. This seems to work well but I want to embed in that another try-catch loop that will restart the computer and generate the report after reboot if it fails a second consecutive time.
I decided to try and modify the registry after reading this article: https://cmatskas.com/configure-a-runonce-task-on-windows/
my plan would be, within the second try-catch loop I will create a textfile called RecoveredPath.txt with the file path being its only contents, and then add something like:
Set-ItemProperty "HKLMU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce" -Name '!RecoverReport' -Value "C:\...EmergencyRecovery.bat"
Before rebooting. Within the batch file I have:
set /p RecoveredDir=<RecoveredPath.txt
powershell.exe -File C:\...Report.ps1 %RecoveredDir%
When I try to run the batch script, it doesn't yield any errors but doesn't seem to do anything. I tried adding in an echo statement and it is storing the value of the text file as a variable but doesn't seem to be passing it to powershell correctly. I also tried adding -Path %RecoveredDir% but that yielded an error (the param in report.ps1 is named $Path).
What am I doing incorrectly?
One potential problem is that not enclosing %RecoveredDir% in "..." would break with paths containing spaces and other special chars.
However, the bigger problem is that using mere file name RecoveredPath.txt means that the file is looked for in whatever the current directory happens to be.
In a comment your state that both the batch file and input file RecoveredPath.txt are located in your desktop folder.
However, it is not the batch file's location that matters, it's the process' current directory - and that is most likely not your desktop when your batch file auto-runs on startup.
Given that the batch file and the input file are in the same folder and that you can refer to a batch file's full folder path with %~dp0 (which includes a trailing \), modify your batch file to look as follows:
set /p RecoveredDir=<"%~dp0RecoveredPath.txt"
powershell.exe -File C:\...Report.ps1 "%RecoveredDir%"
I am working on a workflow where I need to be able to batch convert CSV files into DBF files. The data in the CSV files can all be output as TEXT fields and then saved as a DBF. I have tried to get any output possible using the command line in both Mac OS and Windows 7. While I was a little more successful in Windows, I was not able to get any conversion.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\LibreOffice 5\program\scalc.exe" --convert-to dbf --
infilter="csv:44,34,76,1,1/2/2/2/3/2/4/2/5/2/6/2/7/2/8/2/9/2/10/2/11/2/12/2/13/2/14/2/15/2/16/2/17/2/18/2/19/2/20/2/21/2/22/2/23/2/24/2/25/2/26/2/27/2/28/2/29/2/30/2/31/2/32/2
/33/2/34/2/35/2/36/2/37/2/38/2/39/2/40/2/41/2/42/2/43/2/44/2/45/2/46/2/47/2/48/2/49/2/50/2/51/2/52/2/53/2/54/2/55/2/56/2/57/2/58/2/59/2/60/2/61/2/62/2/63/2/64/2/65/2/66/2/67/2
/68/2/69/2/70/2/71/2,0,false,false" C:\Users\jdavidson\Desktop\DBFCONVERT\*.csv --outdir C:\Users\jdavidson\desktop\complete
So, I needed to have an --infilter on the command line to be able to do the conversion, but now it will only process 1 file and not batch file when using *.csv So, my next hurdle is to get over that.
The below helps to explain --infilters in more detail:
https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/Spreadsheets/Filter_Options#Filter_Options_for_Lotus.2C_dBase_and_DIF_Filters
Any easier way to find the filter sequence you need is by following the below listed steps:
Open the CSV Manually using LibreOffice and Specify Every Detail in the import Wizard
Run the below macro and it will show you the filter options in an input box, so you can copy the string in to your own code
Sub showFilterOptions
Dim args(),i%
args() = thisComponent.getArgs
for i = 0 to uBound(Args())
if args(i).Name = "FilterOptions" then inputbox "","",args(i).value
next
End Sub
Credit to code: https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=14018
The parameters need to be reversed. From https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/2641/convert-to-command-line-parameter/:
soffice --headless --convert-to <TargetFileExtension>:<NameOfFilter> file_to_convert.xxx
Using the old windows command prompt:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\LibreOffice 5\program\scalc.exe" --headless --convert-to dbf C:\Users\jdavidson\Desktop\DBFCONVERT\test.csv
This will create test.dbf in the current directory, which is perhaps C:\Users\jdavidson or, if running as administrator, C:\Windows\system32. To print the working directory, enter pwd, and then dir to see the file.
In powershell, add "& " in front to execute LibreOffice. Then enter gci or ls to see the file.
Be sure that a LibreOffice process is not already running in the background.
I was able to get this to work using the below code:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\LibreOffice 5\program\scalc.exe" --convert-to DBF --infilter="csv:44,34,76,1,1/2/2/2/3/2/4/2/5/2/6/2/7/2/8/2/9/2/10/2/11/2/12/2/13/2/14/2/15/2/16/2/17/2/18/2/19/2/20/2/21/2/22/2/23/2/24/2/25/2/26/2/27/2/28/2/29/2/30/2/31/2/32/2/33/2/34/2/35/2/36/2/37/2/38/2/39/2/40/2/41/2/42/2/43/2/44/2/45/2/46/2/47/2/48/2/49/2/50/2/51/2/52/2/53/2/54/2/55/2/56/2/57/2/58/2/59/2/60/2/61/2/62/2/63/2/64/2/65/2/66/2/67/2/68/2/69/2/70/2/71/2/72/2/73/2/74/2/75/2/76/2/77/2/78/2/79/2/80/2/81/2/82/2/83/2/84/2/85/2/86/2/87/2/88/2/89/2/90/2/91/2/92/2/93/2/94/2/95/2/96/2/97/2/98/2/99/2/100/2/101/2/102/2/103/2/104/2/105/2/106/2/107/2/108/2/109/2/110/2/111/2/112/2/113/2/114/2/115/2/116/2/117/2/118/2/119/2/120/2/121/2/122/2/123/2/124/2/125/2/126/2/127/2/128/2/129/2/130/2/131/2/132/2/133/2/134/2/135/2/136/2,0,false,false" C:\Users\jdavidson\Desktop\DBFCONVERT\57826001_JQSAMPLE.csv --outdir C:\Users\jdavidson\desktop\complete
Please note, that I needed to use DBF and include an --infilter parameter field
There are two websites in my original posting that shows helpful scripts and infilter information to help other users
I am using PDFtk (Version 2.02, UNIX) for merging PDF and facing below problems in the output PDF:
Initial View of the PDF is changed (should open with Bookmarks Panel and Page)
Bookmarks doesn’t point to the exact linked section as in the separate PDFs (shows fit page of the section)
Original metadata is lost (should retain first PDF's metadata)
Please suggest any workaround for the above points.
Regards,
Umesh
It's a little late to answer, but I came across this question while looking for a solution to the same problem. After taking a look at the man of pdftk I found a solution and I made a little script:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# pdfcat
array=( $# )
len=${#array[#]}
merged=${array[$len-1]}
pdf2merge=${array[#]:0:$len-1}
pdftk $1 dump_data output metadata
pdftk $pdf2merge cat output $merged
pdftk $merged update_info metadata output out
mv out $merged
rm metadata
exiftool $merged
The script save the metadata of the first PDF file (first argument) and write it to a file called metadata. Then it uses the cat command of pdftk to merge all the files (the output file is the last argument). Finally it loads metadata's content to the metadata of the resulting file before erasing metadata. The last line uses exiftoolto print the metadata of the resulting file in order to check if everything went well.
You can save this script to your home/username/bin directory, make it executable with:
$ chmod u+x scriptname
and then you can use it to merge files with the following syntax:
$ scriptname 1.pdf 2.pdf 3.pdf output.pdf
The resulting output.pdf will have the same metadata as the original 1.pdf file.
My command line is this (powershell):
$7z ="`"c:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe`""
&$7z a -r -ttar -bd -so . | &$7z a -r -txz -bd $archive -si
The produced archive file indeed contains a tar file, but that tar file is corrupt.
Note, that breaking the pipe into two commands works correctly:
&$7z a -r -ttar -bd ${archive}.tmp .
&$7z a -r -txz -bd $archive ${archive}.tmp
The produced archive is perfectly valid.
So, what is wrong with my pipeline?
(I am using Powershell)
Nothing is wrong with your pipeline it is the way that the pipeline works that's causing the error.
PowerShell pipe works in an asynchronous way. Meaning that output of the first command is available to the second command immediately one object at the time even if the first one has not finished executing, See here.
Both Unix and PowerShell pipes operate in the same way. The reason why you might be seeing a difference from Unix to PowerShell is the way in which they go about it is different.
Unix passes Strings between the commands. Where as a Powershell pipe will pass full-fledged .net object between commands. This difference in the data type being past between command will be why it works on unix and not in PowerShell. If 7z.exe can not huddle these .net objects correctly the files will be come corrupt, See here.
Try adding | %{ "$_" } in between the pipes like
&$7z a -r -ttar -bd -so . | %{ "$_" } | &$7z a -r -txz -bd $archive -si
The point is that the second call to 7z expects unmodified data on STDIN, but PowerShell is converting the output from the first call to 7z to (multiple) (string) objects. % is an alias for foreach-object, so what the additional command does is to loop over each object and convert it to a plain string before passing it on to the second call to 7z.
Edit: Reading through PowerShell’s Object Pipeline Corrupts Piped Binary Data it looks to me now as if my suggestion would not work, and there's also no way to fix it. Well, other than wrapping the whole pipeline into a cmd /c "..." call to make cmd and not PowerShell handle the pipeline.
Edit2: I also was trying this solution from the PowerShell Cookbook, but it was very slow.
In the end, I created a .cmd script with the 7z pipes that I'm calling from my PowerShell script.