Importing a PDF using .SendCommand and a path?

[Anonymous]

I have the following code that essentially presses the "PDF import" button: 

Sub ImportMultiPDF()
    'This opens the MSO file dialog picker to search for a PDF to import.
    ThisDrawing.SendCommand "-PDFIMPORT" & vbCr & vbCr
    'Command to open a PDF at a specific path goes next...
End Sub

My goals:

1. Import a pdf given a path to the pdf

2. Repeat above .SendCommand and additional string inputs to insert an entire multi-page PDF document, page by page, at insertion points specified by a constant page scale. 

In sum, I want to automate the task of importing a PDF page by page, choose where to insert each page, and how to scale them. Each page takes a minute to complete, and some documents are quite long. 

I'm currently stuck on the file path, you have to click on a PDF document after pressing PDF import. 

[Ed__Jobe]

That's one of the problems of using SendCommand, you can't change the command. You could type F for File, however, the command opens the file dialog rather than allowing a true command line input. BTW, that's not an MSO file picker, its an AutoCAD dialog.

[Anonymous]

So, as I feared, you're confirming that there's no reasonable way to use VBA to import a PDF from a path? There really should be a pdfImport function in VBA with attributes such as path. I'd love that feature. 

[Ed__Jobe]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I'd love that feature. 

---

I wouldn't hold my breath. More practical would be for them to correctly implement the command line version. It shouldn't present dialogs. You can submit this to the AutoCAD wish list at augi.com.

[maratovich]

PDFIMPORT no support for COM. Not possible to use from VBA
Maybe this one comes in handy:

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

how about sending a LISP command so you can send the filename to the command line?

(command "_-PDFIMPORT" "_FILE" "C:/TEMP/myPDF.pdf" "1" "0,0" "1.0" "0.0")

Is that what you are looking for?

- alfred -

[bknightALS4H]

Bringing this back from the dead - it appears that the command line version of "PDFIMPORT" doesn't really support passing the filename - it requires use of the file selection dialog. 

So close yet so far! 

Any other options to script this? I have hundreds of PDFs I need to attach. 

[Ed__Jobe]

ThisDrawing.SetVariable "filedia", 0

[bknightALS4H]

Even with the filedia system variable set to 0 I still have issues.

When I type the command and give it a path rather than typing "File" to open the dialog, it gives me *Invalid Selection*

Also trying this and getting issues with the path getting passed properly - seems to lose its formatting:

Command: (command "_-PDFIMPORT" "_FILE" "C:\Users\BillKnight\Documents\Acade 2020\AeData\Proj\DrawingTests\test2.pdf" "1" "0,0" "1.0" "0.0" )
_-PDFIMPORT
Select PDF underlay or [File] <File>: _FILE
Enter filename for PDF import: C:UUsersBillKnightDocumentsAcade 2020AeDataProjDrawingTests       est2.pdf

[bknightALS4H]

Nevermind, I got it working! I just had to escape the "\" in my path with another \

This works! 

(command "_-PDFIMPORT" "_FILE" "C:\\Users\\BillKnight\\Documents\\Acade 2020\\AeData\\Proj\\DrawingTests\\test2.pdf" "1" "0,0" "1.0" "0.0" )

[Ed__Jobe]

That's lisp. This works for me.

Sub pdftest()
    ThisDrawing.SetVariable "filedia", 0
    ThisDrawing.SendCommand "-pdfimport" & vbCr & _
                            "file" & vbCr & _
                            """N:\filepath\1012401C01.pdf""" & vbCr & _
                            "1" & vbCr & _
                            "0,0" & vbCr & _
                            "1.0" & vbCr & _
                            "0" & vbCr
    ThisDrawing.SetVariable "filedia", 1
End Sub