need some pdf help

[GroundZero]

ok here's my situation, I need to be able to create a massive amount of pdf's ( roughly 70,000) using the same background for all of them.
the data I have for each of these "statements is relatively small as is my background image. is there a program out there that will allow me to batch convert all of the files to pdf and still keep the individual pdf under 100k? any help would be great, hell just getting pointed to a good site that might help me figure out what I need to do would be great.

 

[Armitage]

What's the data going in?
Linux has several command-line utilities to convert various formats to pdf which are very scriptable.
If you could come up with a postscript template, it'd probably be easy.

 

[GroundZero]

prob should have been a little more clear.
i print account statements for a client. now i need to start making pdfs of each account and burning the whole months worth of accounts to a cd. the pdf's need to look like the statements I print, hence the background as the statements are on a preprinted company letterhead/form. Unfortunately I don't print pcl. I have xerox metacoded data files that are basicaly coded to print directly on my laser printers, skipping the proccessing required for pcl to print.
so I am guessing that it would probably be easier to make some sort of a pdf form that replicates the preprinted stock and populate it with the data, than to try and rework the data to be able to output in pcl.
did that make it easier to understand or just more confusing?

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: GroundZero
prob should have been a little more clear.
i print account statements for a client. now i need to start making pdfs of each account and burning the whole months worth of accounts to a cd. the pdf's need to look like the statements I print, hence the background as the statements are on a preprinted company letterhead/form. Unfortunately I don't print pcl. I have xerox metacoded data files that are basicaly coded to print directly on my laser printers, skipping the proccessing required for pcl to print.
so I am guessing that it would probably be easier to make some sort of a pdf form that replicates the preprinted stock and populate it with the data, than to try and rework the data to be able to output in pcl.
did that make it easier to understand or just more confusing?

Try printing it to a postscript file instead of the printer, then take a look at the postscript file with a text editor (its ascii).
You may be able to identify the data fields, then you could make a template postscript file. Then you could use awk to replace keywords in the template with the actual data, and use ps2pdf to make the pdf files.

Or, if you can script the print-to-file step, you can just take that route. Print each record to a postscript file, and then run ps2pdf on it.

 

[GroundZero]

i know the data fields and all that as i get raw data and process it to put it in the format i need. but the way i process the data for the printer is not pcl, hence my problem. all my forms reside on the printers themselves and not in the data. pluss there is the preprinted letterhead. would be too big of a headache to try to code another program that would create a document with logos and forms and data to be output in pcl. that is why i am looking into making a template or a form with the logo and "forms"(lines and boxes etc...) in it , and then populate the template with my raw data.

 

[Quixfire]

Adobe Distiller does this, and the file size shouldn't be to large. You also can password protect them to keep them from being altered.

 

[GroundZero]

Originally posted by: Quixfire
Adobe Distiller does this, and the file size shouldn't be to large. You also can password protect them to keep them from being altered.

can i do a batch conversion with distiller?
remember i will be making upwards of 70,000 of these at a time every month

 

[Quixfire]

To combine PostScript files into one PDF file:

1) Start a text editor or a word processor.

2) Choose File > Open, use the browser to locate Runfilex.ps (Windows) or RunFilEx.ps (Mac OS) in the Acrobat Distiller Xtras folder, and open the file as a text file with carriage returns.

3) Follow the instructions in the Runfilex.ps or RunFileEx.ps file. Note that this utility combines PostScript files in the order in which they are listed.

4) Choose File > Save As, and save the modified Runfilex.ps or RunFileEx.ps under a new name. Use the name you want Distiller to give the PDF file. For example, if you name the file Handbook.ps, Distiller creates a PDF file called Handbook.pdf. If you?re using a word processor, save the file as a text file.

5) Quit the text editor or word processor.

6) Open the file in Distiller.

7) Convert the combined file to PDF, or place the file in an In folder to be converted later.

8) When the PDF file is ready, open the file in Acrobat and make sure that all of the document parts are present and in the correct order.

This takes a little practice, but should do what you want.

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: GroundZero
i know the data fields and all that as i get raw data and process it to put it in the format i need. but the way i process the data for the printer is not pcl, hence my problem. all my forms reside on the printers themselves and not in the data. pluss there is the preprinted letterhead. would be too big of a headache to try to code another program that would create a document with logos and forms and data to be output in pcl. that is why i am looking into making a template or a form with the logo and "forms"(lines and boxes etc...) in it , and then populate the template with my raw data.

It sounds like you'll have to come up with some script to recreate the form as a text file. From that point, converting it to postscript with the background, letterhead, etc. shouldn't be to bad. Once it's a postscript, it's easy to convert to pdf (ps2pdf utility). I can't help with the details, but that's the approach I'd try.

You might try recreating the form in a word processor, and printing that to a file, then follow the steps I outlined previously.

 

[GroundZero]

well thanks for the ideas guys, although i think i may have come up with a different idea.
looks like i can do what i was thinking of in javascript.