Using sheet sets and fields to put page numbers

Joe Dunfee

 I have over 50 drawings, from 4 DWG files.  They are merged into one PDF using the Publish feature and a saved sheet set.  I now want to add Pg X of X. And there seems to be a field to do this, but I cannot get it to work.  I already submitted a support request, but this is somewhat urgent and I know this board is often faster with an answer.

I used two fields in an Mtext, "CurrentSheetNumber" and also "CurrentSheetSetSheetCount". However, neither of them seem to function. They just save to the PDF as ----. I already have some fields in my titleblock that shows the file name, and that field is working just fine.

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?  How about other approaches?  

I looked to see if PDF Xchange viewer,or Adobe's PDF viewer had a page # header or footer option, but I could not find any feature like this.

-Joe

Bill Mays

Hi Joe,
I "may" have an external solution.

I have opened pdf docs in Libreoffice Draw module and added page numbers before.
It sounds tedious but is fast enough if the mission is important to finish.
Maybe 20 minutes to do 50 pages

I attached a quick pdf with instructions and example pages.
(if the attach feature works)
Read it first then open in Libreoffice Draw to test the process....
Hope it helps,

Regards,
Bill M

PS Dont laugh at my doodles... i was only testing the demo...hahaha

pdf page numbering example.pdf

Richard Webb

@Joe Dunfee:

 I have over 50 drawings, from 4 DWG files.  They are merged into one PDF using the Publish feature and a saved sheet set.  I now want to add Pg X of X. And there seems to be a field to do this, but I cannot get it to work.  I already submitted a support request, but this is somewhat urgent and I know this board is often faster with an answer.

I used two fields in an Mtext, "CurrentSheetNumber" and also "CurrentSheetSetSheetCount". However, neither of them seem to function. They just save to the PDF as ----. I already have some fields in my titleblock that shows the file name, and that field is working just fine.

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?  How about other approaches?  

I looked to see if PDF Xchange viewer,or Adobe's PDF viewer had a page # header or footer option, but I could not find any feature like this.

The PDF-XChange Editor (their current paid reader/editor release) has the ability to add "Bates Numbering" to an existing PDF. I believe others like Foxit Phantom (paid version) can as well. I haven't exercised it very much but PDF-XChange can add "page x of n" or "x/n" (and date/time, etc.) to the page header or footer. Not sure how overall flexible it is as regards position on the page (i.e., if you need it to show up in a particular block).

"Bates numbering" seems to be the key phrase to check on a 'net search or in the capabilities of a particular PDF reader/editor.

Robt Deans

... "Bates numbering" seems to be the key phrase to check on a 'net search or in the capabilities of a particular PDF reader/editor.

Richard is correct. PS: I'm quite impressed with PDFill. I believe they offer free tools which includes Header & Footer options, wherein lies the Bates Numbering option.

Joe Dunfee

 Thanks for all the replies.  Mr. Webb, your mention of Libreoffice has me curious about other possibilities.  If I can successfully import a PDF into a word processor, it may be possible to use the header/footer features and put page numbers in there.  But, you specifically used the Draw program.  So, I am guessing that it is not possible to import a PDF into Libreoffice's word processing module. Correct?

-Joe

Daniel Eiszele

Hi Joe,

Are you using a true "sheet set", created with the sheet set command? Or are you using a "sheet list" which is created from within the publish command? The latter will not honour the custom fields as these have to be updated within the sheetset dialog. The file extension for the sheetset is dst whereas the sheet list is dsd.  I have had no problems getting the numbering working the way you outlined above. Additionally publishing a sheetset has to be done within the sheetset dialog not using the publish command directly.

regards.

Joe Dunfee

 I was creating the list inside the publish window.  So, apparently that is the problem.  I had no idea there were two methods.  I had put off using the ability to collect pages from different drawings, because I was alway so confused about how to create them.  I suspect that a large part of that confusion was reading about the two methods, but not realizing they were two different methods.

Thanks for that insight.  It  has saved me a lot of frustration.

-Joe

Bill Mays

@Joe Dunfee:

 Thanks for all the replies.  Mr. Webb, your mention of Libreoffice has me curious about other possibilities.  If I can successfully import a PDF into a word processor, it may be possible to use the header/footer features and put page numbers in there.  But, you specifically used the Draw program.  So, I am guessing that it is not possible to import a PDF into Libreoffice's word processing module. Correct?

-Joe

If you meant me...
Correct. For some reason you cant import a pdf into the Writer module in Libreoffice. I would like to think you could but , nope.

You might be able to to take the approach of exporting graphics from Brics then inserting them into a new writer document but i opted to show you the fastest solution being as you were on a time crunch.

I love draw because you add fancy markup and other elements if you are trying to impress people with good printed or pdf material.

The name of the Draw module is a misnomer. Think of it as more of a replacement for MS Publisher. I even lay out web page graphics for my wife's salon with it.
 Many a time i have used it to do things faster than my wife could look up help files in MS Office.
You can have both on one machine without one messing with the other so its a handy thing to have nearby.
Regards,
Bill Mays

Tomas Polak

@Joe Dunfee:

 Thanks for all the replies.  Mr. Webb, your mention of Libreoffice has me curious about other possibilities.  If I can successfully import a PDF into a word processor, it may be possible to use the header/footer features and put page numbers in there.  But, you specifically used the Draw program.  So, I am guessing that it is not possible to import a PDF into Libreoffice's word processing module. Correct?

-Joe

Hi Joe,

yes, I too was trying to import PDFs to Write without success. I am not familiar with LibreOffice Draw capabilities. In may workflow, I use Scribus (http://www.scribus.net) for fancy graphical post processing. It is not that hard to learn to do some basic stuff in Scribus, but it's a bit different from other office suits. From what I know how Draw works, Scribus is much more suitable for this task.
It enables me to add header/footer, page numbering, contents with page numbers, hatches made out of textures, I even prefer to add pictures in Scirbus. It can import and export PDF's properly. The advantage is, that it links PDF's exported from BricsCAD (it doesn't import them), so it's not tedious to make changes in BricsCAD after you created the Scribus document.

If you just need page numbering, SheetSet functionality more straightforward to do this.

Tom

Bill Mays

Tom,
That's another option for sure.
I keep associating Scribus w/ Debian. Never thought to try the Windows version.

I know Joe already solved his problem from within Bricscad but is nice to know all the options for reference.
Cant wait to try it.
Libre is part of my day to day work flow so i usually default to it as a quick solution.

Tomas Polak

Hi Bill,
yeah it's good to have more options. I never tried Draw, when Writer didn't import PDF, I thought no other part of LO would. I previously used Inkscape for this purpose, but it became too tedious for larger projects, Scribus is much better. I found out about the Windows version just recently too (I am using Linux version).
When trying it, you can import PDFs form BricsCAD to Scribus as images. The important thing is to check "Embed PDF & EPS files" box when exporting from scribus. This way the PDF quality is preserved even when exported from Scribus.

Tom

Joe Dunfee

 Some bad news regarding what I hoped would be a good way to put page numbers on drawings.

The Sheetset command is the way a sheet set must be created, in order to use fields to fill out the page#of# type of information.  But, it does not permit the ability to sort the list. If you press the publish button in that window, you are taking it to the standard publish window, with each of your layouts listed as they were created in the Sheetset command. You can click a heading to sort it, but that has no effect on the fields. So, if you sort alphabetically (which, since I put a drawing number on the layout name, is the order I want them) then, it has no effect on the page#of# text. Rather, they retain their old numbers before you sorted them.

Earlier we went to editing the XML file, using a web site, but that certainly is not a casual process to do.

It seems that the only practical method is to abandon the use of fields, and just use the Publish command's own special version of Sheet Sets, and then to put the page numbers by using a 3rd party application that can edit PDFs.  PDF X-Change Editor is one such program that costs $45.  Anyone know of a cheaper one?

-Joe

Tony Clemens

@Daniel Eiszele:

Hi Joe,

Are you using a true "sheet set", created with the sheet set command? Or are you using a "sheet list" which is created from within the publish command? The latter will not honour the custom fields as these have to be updated within the sheetset dialog. The file extension for the sheetset is dst whereas the sheet list is dsd.  I have had no problems getting the numbering working the way you outlined above. Additionally publishing a sheetset has to be done within the sheetset dialog not using the publish command directly.

regards.

Hi Daniel

I came across this thread while looking for solutions to my page numbering nightmare. How exactly did you manage to get it to work? My drawing consists of a collection of drawings, each with their own border and drawing info. I created sheets for each "page", and have tried multiple ways of numbering the pages. I created sheet lists each with their own collection of sheets, and inserted page number fields in both the model view and in the "sheet view", but none seem to update correctly. When I publish from the sheet set dialog, the numbers seem stuck on the last sheet set that was activated or opened, thus numbering the pages according to that. So where I have to sets, one with 5 pages, the other with 29, I am left with 29 pages that are all numbered as a total of 5 when published (which happens when I open up one of the pages in the 5 total set). I know this sounds confusing, but I am pretty confused and irritated right now

Could you please help?

Thanx

Joe Dunfee

 I ended up purchasing PDF X-change's editor, which has a utility to do bates numbering (i.e. PgXofX)  To create the PDF I just use the publish command and manually edit the list of pages and manually order them.  We also adopted a drawing numbering scheme and I prefex each layout tab name with that number and that helped my manual editing a lot.

-Joe