Scripting a TeX document - (or other way to number pdf pages)

Wed Apr 14 12:47:54 UTC 2010

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:59:40 +0000, p.echols wrote:

> ----- "Aart Koelewijn" <aart at mtack.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:00:09 +0000, p.echols wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> > Actually, that is exactly what I was looking for, someone to tell
>> me
>> > that the idea is not in the "realm of realistic" and not to go
>> there!
>> > 
>> > My limited understanding of LaTeX is that you create a source file
>> that
>> > has both text and markup.  That file is then interpreted when
>> printed.
>> > Would it be in the realm of realistic for someone such as yourself
>> to
>> > identify the segments that would have to be in a script to do such
>> a
>> > thing?  My analogy in "fake" html would be
>> > 
>> > <document>
>> > <head>
>> > -Format code
>> > -Font Code
>> > -etc
>> > </head>
>> > <text position=bottom-left>
>> > Page Number 0001
>> > </text>
>> > <pagebreak><text position=bottom-left> Page Number 0002 </text>
>> > <pagebreak><text position=bottom-left> Page Number 0003 </text>
>> > </document>
>> > 
>> > (For the critics, I am not good at html, but I know this is wrong,
>> and
>> > why and that's not the point)
>> > 
>> > The changing parts in such a page would be few, and the result
>> easily
>> > scriptable.  For my purposes, I would not have to understand the
>> LaTeX
>> > code for it to work.  Something you might think of as a fun
>> challenge?
>> > 
>> > 
>> I once did almost all my textwriting with LaTeX, but have hardly used
>> it
>> for some time. But the nice thing about LaTeX is, that keeps lay-out
>> and
>> text separated as much as possible. In that it is a bit like HTML.
>> 
>> Now, the first line of a LaTeX file will be something like:
>> 
>> \documentclass[english, dutch, a4paper, 10pt]{article}
>> 
>> And if you will have pagenumbers or not and where they will be is
>> usually
>> part of that documentclass. You will never see pagenumbers mentioned in
>> your LaTeX file itself. You can change your pagesize or your fontsize
>> 
>> whenever you want, and then the pagenumbers will be in the new places,
>> 
>> automatically.
> 
> But can you explicitly give page breaks?  If so then your script could
> say:
> 
> * * *
> echo '\documentclass [ appropriate formatting for page
> numbers](article)' x=2
> while [ $x -le $total_number_of_pages ] do
> echo "[page break symbol]"
> x=$[$x+1]
> done
> 
> * * *
> 
> Now you would have a document with no text, but a bunch of pages that
> would "print" blank except for the page number.  If you think that is
> even remotely possible, I'll try and do some reading up on it.  Thanks!

I think you could make a document with a number of empty numbered pages 
with:

\documentclass[some options]{your class}
% you could put the package
% \usepackage{fancyheadings}
% to get a lot of control over the headings including pagenumbering
\begin{document}
\newpage
\newpage
\newpage
\end{document}

Aart