Rotating PDFs or identifying rotated PDFs intelligently

[gabrielp]

Is there anyway with a Switch configurator or Pitstop to understand if a PDF is rotated away from reader view? I have a system that delivers proofs to clients and every now and then, a Prepress operator inserts a proof that is rotated (because it is imposed). An example of such a proof would be a PDF that is an Indigo "composition preview". The reason I mainly want to rotate it is that my system also makes thumbnails of the proof for the email and it looks weird when they are sideways.



Here is an example:





If I could isolate any composition previews, that wouldn't even really help because it could be rotated either way. So I'm hoping there might be something in the PDF that knows the way to rotate the document for reading vs printing and then identifying a Pitstop action that takes advantage of that. Sound possible?

[freddyp]

I would start by checking if a page rotation is set on that file or not. In a PDF you can easily and very quickly "rotate" a page by changing the CTM (current transformation matrix). You can see that with the PitStop Inspector (Position - Page box overview). If it is, then you can easily make an Action List that selects by page rotation and changes it.



If the page rotation is not set, but applied, then you do not know and you would have to "smell" it. Perhaps PDFspy has some "olfactory" information on text rotation and you could analyze the prevalent text rotation to come to a conclusion?



Freddy

[dkelly]

While PDFspy doesn't have the sense of smell it can tell you actual reading order. Also, PDF Enhancer can standardize orientations. Mimeo.com uses Enhancer to do both.