Introduction
Alfresco enables us to manage business critical documents like contracts, proposals, agreements and technical manuals providing full version control capability.Hence,we will gain full access to the right version of the documents and files from anywhere, any time.
Alfresco PDF Toolkit adds additional functionality to Alfresco, enabling the manipulation of PDF files.
Use Case
The goal of this use case is to split the PDF pages using ‘Rules’ when a new document is inserted into the space.
Current Functionality:
- Merge – Append PDF to another PDF, generating a new PDF
- Split – Splits a PDF at specified intervals, (ex. 2 pages, 3 pages, etc.), generating new PDFs for each section.
- Split At – Split PDF into two PDFs at a specific page, generating two new PDFs.
- Insert PDF – Insert PDF at a specific Page
- PDF Watermarking
- PDF Encryption
- Digital Signatures
- TIFF to PDF transformation
All of the above actions are available as functionalities that can be used in content rules, and as document library actions in the document browse and detail views.
Requirement
- Minimal requirement of Alfresco 3.2 and maximum requirement of Alfresco 4.x.
- Alfresco PDF Toolkit. Download the add-ons from the website given below https://addons.alfresco.com/addons/alfresco-pdf-toolkit.
Installation Steps
We should first ensure that Alfresco is installed , before we download the Alfresco-pdf-toolkit Add-ons amp package. The installation should be done as per the steps given below:
- Copy the “alfresco-pdf-toolkit-1.0.0.amp” file and paste it into the Alfresco installation folder under the Amps folder.
- Shutdown the Tomcat server.
- Run the “apply_amps” batch file to add “alfresco-pdf-toolkit-1.0.0” into the Alfresco war.
Prerequisites
Create two spaces one for input and the other for output. This use case requires only one space, but we have used two spaces so that the output can be stored in different space.
- To create space, click on the ‘Create’ drop-down list and select the ‘Create Space’ option.
![create space]()
A “Properties” window opens up , where we need to provide the Name, Title, and Description, for the Output document. Then, select one of the ‘Icon’ options provided below and, click on the ‘Create space’ button at the top right hand side.
Steps to Create a Rule
We have applied the rule of specific space. Go to the “Input Document” folder and create a Rule using the drop-down list “More Actions -> Manage Content Rules”.
The “Content Rules” Window opens up and click on the “Create Rule” tab, to add a Rule.
The ‘Create Rule Wizard’ window opens where we need to run the 4 steps given below:
Step 1: Select the Condition “Name contains value”, from the drop-down list.
Click on “Set values and Add” button to add the value for the condition chosen. We have given “*.pdf” to note that this rule will apply only if the input document extension is PDF.
Step 2: Under “Select Actions” , click on the drop-down list and select the “Split PDF” option.
Click on “Set Values and Add” button to add values for the action. We have selected the destination “Output Document” space.
“Split Every” option, in the below screen shot is used to split pdf document by pages based on the input. Ex: If the value entered in the “Split every” input box is 1, then split every single page.
Step 3: Under the “Enter Details” section, we provide the title and description for the document. The rule will be triggered based on the type. We have chosen the Type as “Items are created or enter this folder” to indicate that this rule will be applied to a new document that is added into this folder.
Step 4: Summary of the created rule will be displayed. Finally,Click on “Finish” to save the rule.
Test the rule:
We have added the “example.pdf” document into “Input Document” space. As per the rule created above, the added example.pdf file will be split by page, and will be moved/saved into the “Output Document” folder.
Challenges
While installing Alfresco, we may face the warning message below that concerns the FTP server port. Just changing the port number would resolve the issue.
Conclusion
Alfresco allows organizations to manage any type of content from simple office documents to scanned images, photographs, engineering drawings and large video files.It is commonly used for Document management system, Content platform and CMIS-compliant repository.
Hence we have been able to explain the power of Alfresco PDF toolkit add-ons when integrated with Alfresco for the manipulation of PDF documents.
Reference
- Alfresco: http://www.alfresco.com
- Alfresco PDF toolkit addons: https://addons.alfresco.com/addons/alfresco-pdf-toolkit