Appending or Combining Files Using Document Conversion Service

/by

Need: Take a list of files of various formats and combine (append) them together into a single output file, usually TIFF or PDF.

Document Conversion Service

Solution: This new feature has just been added to Document Conversion Service 2.0.007 which is now available.

  • New command line tool DCSCombineFiles that takes files from the command line as well as from a text file listing the files to append together.
  • Added new method CombineFiles to the PEERNET.ConvertUtility .NET library that takes a list of files to append together.
  • Files are appended in the order in which they are passed.
  • You can append to an existing file by passing it as the first file in the list.
  • The combine method and command line tool, like the other PEERNET.ConvertUtility and command line tools, also use a profile, or a collection of settings, to determine the type of file created.
    • If the provided profile is a serialized profile, such as JPEG, as serialized sequence of images, one for each page of each document in the order provided, will be created (Combined_0001.jpg, Combined_0002.jpg, …Combined_000N.jpg).
  • The Combine method and the DCSCombineFiles command line tool both return only when all files have been appended together, or an error has occurred.
    • The PEERNET.ConvertUtility method returns an object containing complete information about the combine request, the input files and the output files created.
    • The command line tool returns an error code:
      • 0 – success, created files are written to standard output
      • 1 – failure, the errors are written to standard error
      • 2 – invalid parameters, the problem parameter and the help screen are written to standard output.