Reverse page order of PDF

Download PDFLab @ http://pdflab.en.softonic.com/mac

You can add PDF pages, delete PDF pages & reverse the order by dragging the last page to the top & continue until all pages have been reverse ordered.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

Hear hear...

Furthermore, why is it that so many on this forum enjoy reading only half the problem before suggesting only half a solution, that leads right back to where we started?

Is it so hard to imagine that dragging individual pages in a 40+ page doc is just plain tedious or perhaps the complete opposite of what a £1500GBP+licenses computer is meant to do i.e. save time & effort?

I know there are some Apple worshippers out there that have lots of time on their hands, perhaps feeling the need to shuffle their wrist constantly in a meaningless activity, but really, let's think big before posting here - otherwise what's the point?

And frankly Apple - if you're reading this - you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Best regards,

Mr Ubuntu

Seems a bit harsh on people just here trying to help overcome OSX's problems in any known way! 😟

I don't see anybody sticking up for the way it is with Apple's Apps or practises, just people trying to help accomplish the ting asked for.

PDF is ubiquitous, but other than that the only worse doc Format is Word® in my opinion.

I agree the tone was too sarcastic and perhaps below the belt - so my apologies.

It is so very frustrating to have to wade through pages of superfluous, and in many cases inane, chatter that getting to the heart of the matter is impossible.

As a case in point, we can't even PM each other which is why I have to add this post to a public thread - making the problem worse.

And really, the problem isn't people here, or even in OS X. The problem is Apple.

Apple have for some time become so cavalier and imperious to a such a degree that it grates when we are left to fend for ourselves in this manner. Of course they have always had a touch of the blue-stocking but it beggars belief that they are set to go the way of IBM, Microsoft and Nokia - these org's that have forgotten to treat the hand that feeds it with the respect it deserves. It may be that nobody is sticking up for Apple but adding red-herrings here is only making matters harder.

Let's face it, it's just so self-defeating that anything supposedly this good, ought take this level of involvement, just to do the blindly obvious. You'd expect this from things like Linux, Openoffice etc. where the effort relies mainly on volunteers (in their spare time to a large degree). But with the amount of dosh Apple sit on - and continue to take - it seems only too clear where this is going to end and no amount of the 'cool factor' is going to change that.

Something's gotta give - wish this stuff would work - just so fed up! :-(

P.S. Hate to say this but I fixed this problem for myself using Win Vista & pdfforge (see http://www.pdfforge.org/)

I agree with everything stated and I cannot add to it. You said it succinctly and correctly. I have been looking for solutions to my MAC OS X 5.8 for some time and with absolutely no help or assistance from "Holy Apple"! I find them unbelievably irritating. However, after having said all of the above I did fine one Apple tech who had the patience to listen and volunteer help? Wow, what a change. BUT when he led me over to another tech support section to deal with another issue they contradicted the first. I stuck to my guns and requested to speak to the supervisor. When I did this, attitude changed. It took a long time out of my busy days, weeks and months to resolve this and it was mostly my doing! (I am not technically inclined but I am persistent and at 75 I have learned alot about human nature!). But I did lose alot of info. from my machine which has been unretrievable. Have resigned myself to this and am carrying on with my life with "Holy Apple".

About IBM, Microsoft and Nokia, well I think they have a little more heart than Apple! Sad isn't it? I am seriously thinking about changing over to HP and their new dream machine! Apparently it is 1/3 of price - and so if it lasts 5 yrs. great. I have had experience with HP products and their support has far exceeded my expectations.

Cudos to you for speaking your mind and understandably so. I am also fed!

Have you actually tried this? I am not sure that you have.

If you have and it worked, then that's great (for you). But, it only makes matters worse: because it doesn't on mine (and others too) which implies Apple have made a consistency error - and a right clanger at that too.

If it didn't actually work (and I am fairly sure it doesn't) then that only proves my point on two scores:

First, this function will only reverse print direct to paper - NOT to PDF. When invoking this parameter with 'Save to PDF, OS X completely 'forgets' & does it regular order anyway.

Second - and arguably most important - to do it this way is intrinsically self-defeating because of it's arcaneness. Even if it is designed/expected behaviour, the Apple platform prides itself on being straightforward, for use by everyone regardless of technical ability which makes this notion daft. To put another way, I am engineer of c.20 years experience - 12 in UNIX software development, and it took me a number of attempts before I found this option (hence my post here).

Given the enormity of this function, it's also worthy to note that the built-in Apple help doesn't say much about it either.

So sadly it's still 'nil-póint' (as the French would say) to Apple.

And in case you think I sound ungrateful for continuing to burn the wick, let me assure you that I aint. Ta lots for this - it's definitely the most worthy post here and exactly what we come here for.

Now where's my bucket of water... 😉

Good for you - glad to hear I'm not the only one who wants to up the ante!

I still adore my Apple Mac Mini in many many ways since moving over to it back in '05. It was my first experience in a phase of trying new things. It still runs very well in the main and for the first 3-4 years I just couldn't fault it.

But Apple, like the wicked old witch in Hansel & Gretel seems to have been fattening us all up for the kill and I for one am not jumping into the oven!

As for HP - their kit has been doing me justice (and lots of my friends too) for the last few years and they're self help support is second to none IMO.

Hope you get what you're looking for - all the very best.

🙂

Kellys Hero wrote:

But Apple, like the wicked old witch in Hansel & Gretel seems to have been fattening us all up for the kill and I for one am not jumping into the oven!

Yes, that is precisely their strategy. Then they will eat only your fat, juicy parts and feed the rest to the dogs.

It is indeed unfortunate that reversing page order seems to be a paper-handling feature, and that if you do not print to paper, the reversing of pages does not seem to work.

You seem to be missing an important detail in this process.

The Original Poster was trying to solve a problem with their scanner. It did not do duplexing when scanning. They admitted that the fronts and backs could be merged with the tools at hand, but were looking to reverse the page order for the backs.

The fundamental problem is caused by the operator, not the software. To reverse the order, when you have a stack of papers, is a well understood process, or can be re-derived with some very simple experiments: Take the top sheet from the source stack and place it as the bottom sheet of the destination stack. Repeat until the source stack is exhausted. Now scan the re-ordered stack.

Please do not bash Apple over this, it is not Apple's fault that the user's scanner does not duplex. When printing or scanning two-sided material on a device that does not duplex, it is common to have to reorder the pages during the process.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

You seem to be missing an important detail in this process.

The Original Poster was trying to solve a problem with their scanner.

Yup! Missed it!

Please do not bash Apple over this, it is not Apple's fault that the user's scanner does not duplex.

Nope, wasn't bashing Apple!

You seem to be missing an important detail in this process.

...

The fundamental problem is caused by the operator, not the software. To reverse the order, when you have a stack of papers, is a well understood process

Not so I beg to differ - and here's why: page reordering is a basic reprographic function and it doesn't matter how one comes into possession of said documents (PDF or otherwise for that matter), it is only fair & reasonable to expect this function as standard anyway i.e. they may not have even done the original scanning themselves.

... or can be re-derived with some very simple experiments: Take the top sheet from the source stack and place it as the bottom sheet of the destination stack. Repeat until the source stack is exhausted. Now scan the re-ordered stack.

Yes you are correct to say this but only to a point. Whilst the user could, perhaps, perform a 2nd or 3rd pass to get the reordering correct, that would seem again, fairly redundant given the facilities meant to be offered by any system in general, but especially by Apple (bearing in mind previous postings other than my own).

Besides, if a lot of work is involved (like mine was - and it wasn't even a professional task) then expecting the user to take a multi-pass approach to a service that is easily rendered in software - and indeed should be - is again, a waste of time. It is akin to taking a taxi cab to drive you somewhere, paying full fare, and then being told 1/2 mile from destination that you'll have to finish the drive yourself.

Admittedly, the scanner drivers ought to provide this feature also, as part of a discrete package but all the same, the Apple brand has to mean something too and so it follows that once in PDF, ODF (or whatever) then it doesn't matter what the source was, the ability to reorder should be present and obviously so at that (again, like other features Apple sells it's image on).

So yes, the user could have been able to avert the problem but they are still NOT in error here as s/he has every reasonable expectation for their method to work as a valid one (and is in my opinion a superior because of it's efficiency).

This is extremely simple to do with Automator: Use the "PDF to Images" action to save the even-numbered pages to separate files, then reverse their order with the following Apple script:

on run {input, parameters}

return reverse of input

end run

I use an Automator workflow for exactly the same problem the OP was trying to solve: I have two pdfs from a scanner with ADF but no duplex capability. The first pdf contains the odd pages in ascending order, the second pdf contains the even pages in descending order (scanned by flipping the whole document stack around and putting it in the scanner again). The workflow opens two pdfs containing odd and reversed even pages, reverses the order of even pages and finally shuffles odd and reversed even pages back to one document. I have put my workflow here

http://www.2shared.com/file/8rR6cprW/Process_Even-Odd_Scans.html

Of course, you will need to adapt the directories to your needs.

P.S.: Hacking together the automator action certainly took less time than writing an Apple-bashing rant 😉

Booo yah! After only a measly 2 weeks of occasionally picking up the search to figure this issue out, I find it at the end of a bunch of apple-bashing rants! Thank you so much for the workflow template!!!

I realize that this is a reply to an old post, but I found it while searching and thought I would provide an update.

Here are a couple of other options:

Download and install the open source, free PDFwriter software: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfwriterformac/files/

You can then print the documet to the PDFWriter printer using the reversed page handling, even from Adobe applications.

OR

Do something similar with the paid Printopia program. You can enable the "Send to Mac" option and print to that using reversed page handling.