Page Exporter Utility (PEU) 5 Script Updated for CS3
September 4th, 2007A number of people swear by the free Page Exporter Utility for exporting InDesign documents as individual PDF, JPEG, EPS, or Postscript pages (or outputting multiple PDF files as a batch process). The bad news is that it hasn’t always been easy to find a copy of it on the Web. The good news is that the script’s author, Scott Zanelli, has consented for us to post the newest version (5) here, which is supposed to work with both CS2 and CS3. (I’ve only tested it with CS3.)
You can download Page Exporter Utility here:
The Page Exporter Utility offers a number of options for exporting your files. For example, you can export each spread as an individual PDF file, specifying custom naming and so on:
There is also a “versioning” option that lets you create a number of different PDFs from different layer combinations. For example, lets say you have one base layer and three language layers. You would want three different PDF files: english+base, french+base, and so on.
PEU is clever, it’s relatively fast, and it has a darn good price (free). If you’re a scripter, you can even customize the script (Scott has released it under the GNU General Public License).
Cooooool. I’m gonna be bold and try add a RTF exporter. And an export book option… which I don’t think I will be able to do, but gotta start somewhere
And hope I’m not being mean here. But when you select Change Preferences. And then press cancel, yes you get the previous screen again, but without the “change preferences” option.
Cool Script though. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you IndesignSecrets and Scott Zanelli for this new version. I’m one of thoses who cannot work without it.
Jean-Claude, can I ask what you use the script for? I’m just curious, since you said you can’t work without it … might spark some ideas with other ID users, including myself.
Hi Anne-Marie, our workflows works best with single page documents (PDF prefered, but also some time EPS). The script allow for one click export to single pdf page with naming option we can configure. And even if Indesign can export multiple page document as single EPS, their is no way to use defined custom file naming. Also, when we deal with multi-language Indesign document, the script versioning feature is a real blessing.
Until, all this is build in Indesign natively, Scott’s script is a gift from heaven!
Eugene,
The “Change Preferences” option isn’t shown twice in order to protect settings in the batch exporting mode. If the preferences weren’t hidden, then they could be changed when each document’s export options were set. This would effectively “break” things for the earlier set-ups. So, it isn’t a bug, but is intentionally set up that way.
Thanks for bringing it up though!
Thank you! It’s very useful!
Ah I see scott, I just noticed it and thought it perculiar. I wonder if there’s a way of graying that out or something. I certainly like your script. It’s very good.
consider you have an indesign file for imposing a large book with 20 gigabytes size of contents and 100 pages. you must export to pdf one by one manually or use this script. But I don’t why after exporting some pages indesin says IO error and I must use print to ps instead of export to pdf
Great script! Just saved me 1 hour of work. In our magazine we do “one article - one file”. After sending pdfs to the printer, we also need to make one pdf pr article to the website. This has been tiresome exportwork from ID.
With the batch feature in the script the whole thing was done automaticly in a few minutes!
Thanks a lot from Norway!
I love the version feature, it suits me fine, as I work on ads that have 3 different languages all the time, thanks alot and god bless u.
hope I can pay you back somehow!!!
Hi! its cool script! PEU4.1 not working on ma CS2 but PEU5 is ready to use!
Eugene,
No way to “gray” it out and stay compatible with CS2. The batch options will also disappear after the first job’s info is entered.
Saeid,
Is it the same pages giving the I/O error or does the error occur at different times? Have you tried manually exporting the page that causes the I/O error using InDesign? This would help tell if it is the script causing the problem or InDesign.
I/O error is indesign fault not script fault. however thanks
This script just saved me a ton of work, thank you!
I am new to InDesign and need to install the Printer Spread plugin. Where do I place it?
I don’t know what the Printer Spread plug-in is. Do you mean this PEU script (mentioned above)? If so, you can find out more on how to install and run scripts here.
This utility has been around a while and is a must have. Scott should be commended for his fine work on this! Glad to see its CS3 ready!
This is a godsend for us. The countless times I have to sit and wait for Acrobat to export to single pages was an extra step that was eleminated thanks to this. Thank you very much Mr. Scott Zanelli
I remember that I used this script to export .ps-files. Propably with CS2. With the new version the .ps-option seems to be gone? I am a complete dummy in programming but a look into the javascript-code shows that the .ps-option seems to be integrated. The user interface of version 4 on http://www.lonelytreesw.com/ shows the Postscript-option. The screenshot above and the script on my mac do not.
You have to install a Print Preset that has its printer set to “PostScript File” before the PS option will appear in the script’s main dialog box. This is done because there is no way to rename a file sent to a laser printer, etc.
I know time put to create a script as long as this…THANK YOU!
is there any way to get the ouput directory to see a whole drive and to pick a folder on that drive. I would like to put each job in its own job folder with having to go to preferences and the to name the folder and then to have to delete the folder later.
thanks
In the change preferences section, change the starting directory to be the root of your drive. When exporting, make the Output directory “Specific Directory”.
This will then bring up the “Save As” style dialog to ask you where to put the exported pages. Since you set the starting directory to the root of the drive, a simple double click should get you into your needed job folder.
I’ve been working in InDesign for over a year now, but am new to forums, etc. Put together an 188 page real estate magazine, and have been exporting 188 individual PDFs one at a time. I just had to say thanks for taking the time to put together EXACTLY the information I needed to make a SLOW TIME CONSUMING process - fast and simple. And double thanks to the script’s author Scott.
This is an excellent addition to our workflow. But, when we export our varnish files, there is no page information line. It makes it difficult to “marry up” the Kodak page proofs with the varnish overlays as the varnish printer does not have its own tag line.
Any suggestions?
I would need more info to give a suggestion. Send me an email and we can try to figure this out:
szanelli11lonelytreesw2222com
(replace 11 with @ and 2222 with .)
You have no Idea how much time this saves us. Went from an all day process to 20min!!!
Thank you so much.
Scott, how hard would it be to convert his script for use in InCopy?