Automated post processing of PDFs

Question

The PDFs generated by RoboHelp are not production-ready in my
opinion, because:
- All bookmarks are expanded by default.
Acrobat Pro does not include a feature to collapse all
bookmarks at once (you can only collapse top-level bookmarks). You
have to collapse bookmarks either manually, or use the free Acrobat
plug-in "closebm" from Planet PDF. This plugin works with Acrobat 8
BTW.
- The initial page mode of the PDF generated with RH is set
to "Page Only". This means that the bookmarks panel is not
displayed when opening the PDF. My preferred setting is to show the
available bookmarks when a PDF is opened (Acrobat setting
"Bookmarks Panel and Page").
Because we run everything in batch (compile help, publish
help) and because we do not wish to buy a full Acrobat license for
every author/publisher (the add-on that comes with RH should be
enough), I have created a solution that automatically collapses
bookmarks, sets the initial view to show bookmarks, and finally
linearizes (Fast Web View) the PDF.
You don't need Acrobat to do this and all auxiliary (and
free) programs to post process are in the sample project that you
can download from
here:
After unzipping the sample project, double-click the file
"PostProcessPDF.bat". This batch file will update the
"Printed_Documentation.pdf" in the folder "PDF Input" and put 2 new
versions in the folder "PDF Output":
1. BookmarksCollapsed.pdf
2. BookmarksCollapsed_Linearized.pdf
The following steps are performed in the batch file:
- The bookmarks from the original RH PDF
("Printed_Documentation.pdf") are exported to XML using "iText
Toolbox";
- The resulting XML file is manipulated with "replace.exe"
(just a free command line search/replace tool that I found), so
that bookmarks are set to collapse;
- The manipulated XML file + original
"Printed_Documentation.pdf" are then combined in "iText Toolbox" to
create the new "1. BookmarksCollapsed.pdf" in folder "PDF Output";
- The "1. BookmarksCollapsed.pdf" in folder "PDF Output" is
processed with Ghostscript's "pdfopt" to linearize the PDF again.
When you change a PDF and just "Save" a PDF (also in Acrobat), Fast
Web View is gone. In Acrobat you have to 'Save As' or use the "PDF
Optimizer" to linearize the PDF again.
The sample project is pretty large (11 MB), but this is
because Ghostscript and iText Toolbox are included.
BTW, you must have Java installed to use "iText Toolbox".
Have fun,
Herman

Answer 1

I thought that because Ghostscript is command-line based, I
could just add the files to my sample project.
But apparently there are some dependencies, and you have to
install Ghostscript to use my sample files.
If you want to play around with my sample files, install
Ghostscript to the folder 'RH' (remove folder 'gs' first). It will
then install to folder RH\gs, where the batch file is expecting the
Ghostscript files.
Latest version of Ghostscript can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?group_id=1897&use_mirror=heanet&filename=gs 862w32.exe&73395111