PDF Document Management Software, Services & Support

General Command Line Options

User Guide

Introduction

Common command-line options are used in all Appligent server applications.  These options deal with product information, progress messages, and file maintenance.

General Options — summary

The following table provides a summary of the general command-line options:

General Options — detailed

The following sections provide details on using the general command-line options.

-r <RegNum> — Pass registration number to FDFMerge Lite or FDFMerge

The registration number is required. Use this option to supply your registration number when you call FDFMerge Lite or FDFMerge from a script or another application:

$fdfmergeliteapp -r XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX [other options]

$fdfmergeapp -r XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX [other options]

This option may also be used on the command line. However, as a convenience, you can use the fdfmergelite or fdfmerge script, created during installation, to call fdfmergeliteapp or fdfmergeapp and supply the registration number:

$fdfmergelite [other options]

$fdfmerge [other options]

Note: Do not call the fdfmergelite or fdfmerge script from another script or application. Call fdfmergeliteapp or fdfmergeapp directly with the registration number option, as shown in the first example.

In previous versions of FDFMerge or FDFMerge Lite, the FDFMerge or FDFMerge Lite registration number was required as a command line option with the -r flag each time fdfmergeapp or fdfmergeliteapp was run. An FDFMerge or FDFMerge Lite script was provided that automatically added -r and the registration number to the fdfmergeapp or fdfmergeliteapp command line when the script was run.

In the current release, in addition to getting the registration number from the command line, FDFMerge or FDFMerge Lite can get the registration number from a license file in the appligent home directory. On unix systems, license files are created by the installation script and stored in the ${APPLIGENT_HOME}/license directory. For windows, the license file is created by the installer and stored in the

All Users\Application Data\Appligent\License directory. With a valid license file, the -r is no longer required on the command line. The -r option can still be used as in previous versions, and will override the value in the license file.

-l <logfile> — Create a log file (optional)

Specify a text file for any errors and progress messages.   This option is helpful for debugging. The -l <logfile> option must be followed by a file name.  If there are no errors, no file is written.  If a log file is not specified, errors are written to the default log file fdfmergelite.log or fdfmerge.log.  Make sure that your log file is write enabled.

-p — Show progress (optional)

Write progress messages to the screen STDOUT, the standard output of your system and to the default log file fdfmergelite.log or fdfmerge.log.  This option is helpful for debugging and for understanding how FDFMerge Lite or FDFMerge works.

Note: Please see the sections below: A note on using -p and -l <logfile> together for more clarification on using log files and writing progress messages to the screen.

A note on using -p and -l <logfile> together

As outlined in the above section the -p option gives you progress messages on your screen and the -l <logfile> option writes error messages to a file if errors occur.  The table below provides more detail on using these options alone or together.

Therefore, -l <logfile> used on its own will only go into action if there are errors.  With -p and -l <logfile> combined, you will get a text file with full details on FDFMerge Lite or FDFMerge operations whether there are errors or not.

-n — Do not write anything to the screen (optional)

Do not write anything to the screen (or STDOUT).  If you are running batch mode, this prevents progress message from building up.

-v — Display version information (optional)

Display the version of FDFMerge Lite or FDFMerge you are running.  This is important when corresponding with support@Appligent.com.  In order to better understand your problem, we must know what version of the software you have.  FDFMerge Lite or FDFMerge will not do anything else if you use this option.

-h or -help — Show usage (optional)

Display all available command-line options.  FDFMerge Lite or FDFMerge will not do anything else when you use these options.

-i — Perform incremental save (optional)

An incremental save appends changed information to the end of the file.  This is faster than a full save, but may result in a larger file. A full save is similar to using the "Save As.." command in Adobe Acrobat. It is a save that attempts to clean up a PDF file, often reducing its size.

-w — Linearize the file upon save (optional)

Save the output file as a linearized document, also known as optimized. Linearization reorganzies the file to make it more efficient for web delivery.  Individual pages can be rendered before the entire document has downloaded, so the user can start reading the document sooner.

-optimize

This flag will do the following: 1) encode any non-encoded streams using Flate compression, 2) remove ASCII85 filters from all streams, 3) replace LZW encoded streams with Flate encoding, 4) merge identical XObjects and images, 5) optimize common sequences in page content, and 6) merge identical font descriptors and encodings. This option will usually result in a smaller file size.

-iso32000

This flag will do the following: Set file for ISO 32000 compliance, resulting in a document that is PDF version 1.7.

docs - FormInfo Files | docs - Using FDFMerge Lite Or FDFMerge