Split Pages

The 'Page Filter' property allows you to specify which pages of a multi-page document should be extracted as Batch Pages. Use this to process only a subset of pages from the input file, such as the first page, a range, or a custom selection.

• The filter accepts a comma-separated list of page numbers and ranges (e.g., 1,3-5,7).
• Page numbers are 1-based.
• Ranges (e.g., 2-4) include both endpoints.
• If left blank, all pages will be extracted.

Example

• 1,3-5 extracts pages 1, 3, 4, and 5.

Use this property to skip cover pages, extract only relevant sections, or limit processing to specific pages in large documents.

The 'Page Limit' property sets an upper bound on the number of pages that can be processed from a single input file. If a file exceeds this limit, an error will be generated and the file will not be split.

• Use this to prevent accidental processing of abnormally large or corrupt files.
• Set to 0 to disable the limit (all files will be processed regardless of size).
• Adjust this value based on the expected size of your document corpus.

This property is especially useful for quality control and to avoid excessive resource consumption on unexpected input.

The 'Overwrite' property determines what happens if a Batch Folder already contains child Batch Pages when the split operation runs.

• If set to true (default), any existing children will be deleted and the folder will be re-split.
• If set to false, folders with existing pages will be skipped and left unchanged.

Enable this option to ensure that the latest version of the input file is always split, replacing any previous results. Disable it to avoid overwriting manually added or previously processed pages.

The 'Remove Original' property controls whether the source attachment (e.g., PDF, TIFF, or image file) is deleted from the Batch Folder after the split operation finishes.

• Set to true to free up storage space once the document has been split into Batch Pages.
• Set to false to retain the original file for archival, review, or reprocessing.

Use this option when you no longer need the original file after splitting, especially in high-volume or storage-constrained environments. Exercise caution, as deletion is permanent and cannot be undone.

Can be one of the following values:

When splitting a PDF document, each page will be extracted either as an image or as a native PDF page, depending on how the Image Bursting and Rendering properties are configured. When a page is to be extracted as a native PDF page, this property controls which resources (fonts, bitmaps, etc.) are copied with the page - all listed resources, or only resources actually used in the drawing operators for the page.

Inside a PDF file, each page has set of drawing instructions, and a resource dictionary listing the fonts, images, and other resources needed to draw the page. When exporting a page from a PDF file, most applications blindly copy all resources listed in the page's resource dictionary to the output file, without verifying that the resources are actually used for drawing operations.

For most PDF documents this works fine, because the resource dictionary for each page lists only the resources needed to draw that page. However, in some poorly-formed PDF files, all pages share a single resources dictionary listing every resource used on every page. In this case, exporting a single page will cause every resource in the file to be exported with it, producing a file nearly as large as the original document for each page. Most desktop PDF editing tools, including Adobe Acrobat, split PDF files using this blind resource copy mechanism, which can severely bloat PDF files having this condition.

Outside of shared resource dictionaries, sometimes pages simply reference resources they don't need. For example, if a page references a font named "Font1", but has no text segments drawn using that font, it is considered an unused resource. Any large corpus of PDF documents will typically contain some percentage of wasted space due to unused resources. Forcing sparse copy for all pages can help reduce file size by eliminating random unused resources.

Can be one of the following values:

The 'Compression' property determines how PDF pages are compressed when they are saved as part of the split operation.

• Enabling compression (e.g., BestCompression) reduces the file size of each Batch Page created from a PDF, which can help conserve storage space, especially for large batches or high-resolution documents.
• Disabling compression (e.g., NoCompression) can significantly speed up the split process, as less time is spent compressing each page. This is particularly beneficial when splitting very large documents or when performance is a priority.
• The compression setting only affects the intermediate Batch Page objects. When documents are later merged or exported, the PDF content is recompressed according to the export settings.

Usage Guidance

• Use BestCompression for environments where storage efficiency is important and split performance is not a bottleneck.
• Use NoCompression to maximize throughput when splitting large volumes of documents, accepting larger intermediate file sizes.
• Adjust this setting based on your workflow's balance of speed and storage requirements.

Can be one of the following types:

The Image Bursting property controls whether Grooper attempts to directly extract the original image resource from image-based PDF pages during the split operation—a process known as PDF bursting.

What Is Image Bursting?

• Image bursting is the process of recovering the original image embedded in a PDF page, without rendering or recompression.
• A page is considered image-based if its visible content is defined by a single image (e.g., scanned pages, "searchable" PDFs with invisible text overlays).
• When bursting is enabled and a page qualifies, Grooper extracts the raw image data (such as JPEG or JPEG 2000) directly from the PDF file.

Why Use Direct Image Extraction?

• Preserves Image Integrity:
  By extracting the original image bytes, Grooper avoids decompressing and then recompressing the image with a lossy algorithm. This ensures that continuous tone images (such as photographs or high-quality scans) retain their original quality, color fidelity, and resolution.
• No Quality Loss:
  Lossy formats (JPEG, JPEG 2000) are extracted as-is, so there is no generational loss or introduction of compression artifacts.
• Performance:
  Direct extraction is typically faster than rendering, as it does not require rasterization or image processing.

Special Considerations

• CMYK JPEG Exception:
  JPEG images using the CMYK color space must be normalized to RGB, which requires one cycle of decompression and recompression.
• Annotations:
  If a page contains annotations, bursting may be disabled or configurable (see 'BurstAnnotatedPages' in PDF Burst Settings).
• Transformations:
  If the image is rotated or transformed in the PDF, some cases may require decompression and recompression to apply the transform.

When to Use or Defer Bursting

• Enable bursting to maximize image quality for scanned documents, archival, or downstream OCR.
• Disable bursting for large PDFs if performance is critical; you can defer image extraction and run the [Batch Page - Rasterize] command later, which allows parallel processing at the page level.

Interaction with Rendering

• If bursting is disabled or a page is not image-based, Grooper will use PDF rendering (see Rendering) to convert the page to an image.

Can be one of the following types:

The Rendering property controls whether Grooper will render PDF pages to images during the split operation.

• Rendering is the process of drawing a PDF page onto an image canvas at a specified resolution and color format.
• This is used for:
  • Splitting damaged or malformed PDF files that cannot be split by direct extraction or bursting.
  • Converting all PDF pages to images, regardless of their original content type (useful for normalization).
  • Handling pages that are not image-based or when bursting is disabled.

How It Works

• If Page Extraction is disabled, all pages are rendered to images.
• If Image Bursting is enabled, only non-image-based pages or pages that cannot be burst are rendered.
• Rendering can be used as a fallback for error recovery or to ensure consistent image output.

Configuration

• The PDF Render Settings object allows you to specify resolution (DPI), color format, and other rendering options.
• Higher resolutions produce larger, more detailed images but require more processing time and storage.

Best Practices

• Use rendering to handle problematic PDFs or to standardize page images for downstream processing.
• For best performance, use bursting for image-based pages and rendering only when necessary.

The 'Replicate Bookmarks' property controls whether the bookmark structure from the source PDF is preserved as a hierarchy of Batch Folders during the split operation.

• When enabled, each top-level bookmark in the PDF creates a corresponding subfolder, and pages are placed into these folders according to the bookmark hierarchy.
• This is useful for complex documents where bookmarks represent logical sections, chapters, or document boundaries.
• If disabled, all pages are placed directly under the parent Batch Folder, and the bookmark structure is not preserved.
• This option is only available when no 'Page Filter' is set, as filtering may disrupt the bookmark-to-page mapping.

Example

• A PDF with bookmarks for "Section 1", "Section 2", etc., will result in subfolders named "Section 1", "Section 2", each containing the relevant pages.

Use this property to maintain document organization and facilitate downstream processing or review based on the original PDF's logical structure.

The 'Flag Issues' property determines whether Batch Folders are automatically flagged when the split operation detects recoverable issues in the source PDF.

• When enabled, any non-critical errors or warnings encountered during PDF splitting (such as minor corruption, missing resources, or recoverable format issues) will result in the folder being flagged for review.
• The flag message will include details about the issue, helping operators identify and address potential problems before downstream processing.
• If disabled, these issues are logged but do not trigger a flag, allowing processing to continue without manual review.

Usage Guidance

• Enable this property in quality control workflows or when processing documents from unreliable sources.
• Use flagged items to prioritize review and ensure data integrity.
• For high-volume, trusted sources, you may choose to disable this property to minimize manual intervention.

A combination of the following flags:

The Error Disposition property determines the system's response to errors that occur while executing the activity.

• Flag: The affected Batch Folder or Batch Page will be flagged for review.
• Log: The error will be written to the Grooper event log.
• Stop: Processing will halt, the Batch will be set to an error state, and all pending tasks will be deleted.

You can combine multiple options using the IssueDisposition flags.
Adjust this property to match your organization's error handling and escalation policies.

If the number of consecutive errors reaches this value, a critical stop will occur and the Activity Processing service will halt further processing.

• Use this property to prevent runaway failures and to ensure that persistent errors are escalated for review.
• Set to a higher value to allow more retries before stopping, or to a lower value for stricter error control.

Can be one of the following values:

The Concurrency Mode property determines whether the activity can be executed in parallel across multiple Batch Objects, or if it must run sequentially.

• This setting affects which Processing Queue the activity is submitted to and how tasks are distributed.
• Choose the appropriate mode based on the activity's thread safety and resource requirements.