Creating a two page tiff document.

Question

Level 1

46 points

Creating a two page tiff document.

I am digitizing a number of historical documents for my genealogy records. I use pdf files for some documents but prefer tiff for important files. With my flatbed scanner and VueScan software I am able to scan multiple images into a multiple page tiff document. However for large documents that won't fit in my scanner I am forced to use a camera and create separate images for a multipage document. Using Preview I am able to merge two pdf documents into a two page single document but have been unsuccessful at merging tiff images. M1 Mac Mini 13.2.1.

Mac mini (M1, 2020)

Posted on Mar 14, 2023 10:21 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

125,260 points

Mar 14, 2023 1:44 PM in response to Bob1177

So you have your Experiment folder on the Desktop. Launch the Terminal application. Then enter these commands to change to your Experiment folder, and make your multi-page TIFF. Because your files have numeric values they will be placed in the multi-page TIFF in the order you shared above:

cd ~/Desktop/Experiment
/usr/bin/tiffutil -cat *.tif -out multi.tif

In the Finder, you should now see multi.tif in your Desktop Experiment folder, and you can double-click on it to open in Preview.

Reply

Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

125,260 points

Mar 14, 2023 11:27 AM in response to Bob1177

In the macOS Ventura 13.2.1 Terminal application, isolate the TIFF images that you want to combine into a multi-page TIFF in their own folder. Switch to that folder, and then use:

man tiffutil

tiffutil -cat *.tiff -out multi.tiff
open multi.tiff

If the individual TIFF images are numerically sequenced (e.g. 2pp_01.tiff, 2pp_02.tiff), or not in a naming scheme where the wildcard can append them in ascending order, then you need to specify each TIFF image in a comma separated list behind -cat.

Note: Apple's Quick Look is not designed to show multi-page TIFF images so your first hint of success is when you open the multi.tiff in Preview and can see this result.

Reply

Answer 3

VikingOSX

Level 10

125,260 points

Mar 15, 2023 4:53 AM in response to Bob1177

The UNIX change directory command that I offered:

cd ~/Desktop/Experiment

would have worked in the Bash or Zsh shell if that folder existed on the Desktop. The tilde (~) character is just shorthand for /Users/bob, your home directory in the Terminal.

That above command was based on your earlier statement that you had created the Experiment folder on your Desktop, yet your last post refers to a TiffExperiment folder, which might explain why the cd syntax failed earlier.

cd ~/Desktop/TiffExperiment

The tiffutil application expects well-formed TIFF images. Mine were 300 dpi TIFF created from a two-page PDF, and the tiffutil worked as expected. If your TIFF images are malformed from the utility perspective, then there is not much that can be done to build a multi-page TIFF result.

How are you generating TIFF images from your camera-generated document images?

Reply

Answer 4

dialabrain

Level 10

136,911 points

Mar 14, 2023 2:00 PM in response to VikingOSX

FWIW, /usr/bin/tiffutil -cat *.tif -out multi.tif doesn't work. Your original command tiffutil -cat *.tiff -out multi.tiff does

Reply

Answer 5

Bob1177 Author

Level 1

46 points

Mar 14, 2023 11:57 AM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks for the suggestion dialabrain. However, I wanted multi page documents and as I read the options you suggested they produced a single page collage. I can do that with Photoshop Elements.

Thanks for the suggestion VikingOSX. I will try it out this evening or tomorrow, just as soon as I can.

Reply

Answer 6

dialabrain

Level 10

136,911 points

Mar 14, 2023 12:06 PM in response to Bob1177

Bob1177 wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion dialabrain. However, I wanted multi page documents and as I read the options you suggested they produced a single page collage. I can do that with Photoshop Elements.

You're welcome. I actually thought that's what you wanted. 😎

Reply

Answer 7

Bob1177 Author

Level 1

46 points

Mar 14, 2023 1:34 PM in response to Bob1177

I am inexperienced in the use of Terminal and don't know how to "isolate the TIFF images that you want to combine into a multi-page TIFF in their own folder" or " Switch to that folder".

I created an experiment by selecting the files: 323PolkSt.tif and828ESheridan.tif and placed them in the folder Desktop > Experiment. Needless to say that did not work. Can you break it down a little more for me? Thanks!

Reply

Answer 8

Bob1177 Author

Level 1

46 points

Mar 14, 2023 2:37 PM in response to VikingOSX

I am still doing something wrong.

I copied the two lines:

cd ~/Desktop/Experiment
/usr/bin/tiffutil -cat *.tif -out multi.tif

and pasted them into a Terminal window.

This is a copy/paste of what I got:

The default interactive shell is now zsh.

To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.

For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.

roberts-mini:~ bob$ cd ~/Desktop/Experiment

-bash: cd: /Users/bob/Desktop/Experiment: No such file or directory

roberts-mini:~ bob$ /usr/bin/tiffutil -cat *.tif -out multi.tif

Error: Failed to create image source for file *.tif. Either it isn't a TIFF file, or there are unrecognized tags; try tiffutil -dump for more info.

Error: Can't read from file *.tif.

No output file created due to errors.

roberts-mini:~ bob$

The folder TiffExperiment still has just the two files.

I also tried it one line at at a time and no luck.

Reply

Answer 9

Bob1177 Author

Level 1

46 points

Mar 15, 2023 12:44 PM in response to VikingOSX

It worked!! Thank you for your patience in helping an old man. (85) I will have a bunch of these to do. Can I put multiple folders in the script above or do I have to run it separately for each folder?

Bob

Reply