Catalogue creation with Page-Design

[Renel]

I have designed a catalogue with Page Design. The inforation of a product fits in 1/5 of a letter sized page. When printing, it prints 1 product per page instead of placing 4 or 5 products per page. I am using Setable cloud.

Your Setup:

• SeaTable Cloud, Dedicated or Self-hosted?
• SeaTable Version (only necessary for self-hosted):
  You can find your SeaTable Server version at https://your-server-url/server-info

Describe the Problem/Error/Question:

Please describe your issue as precise as possible. If helpful, you can also provide:

• Screenshots
• Diagrams with Excalidraw
• Base structure details using this script.

Error Messages:

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Example of a code block for error messages

[bha]

Hi @Renel, and welcome to the SeaTable forum!
Unfortunately, the Page Design isn’t currently capable of combining your pages depending on their size in a page.
Here is a “not-so-simple-but-still-working” workaround I found:

• in your Page Design plugin, select a custom size for your page and set the appropriate width and height.
• use the print / all records in view function to get one single PDF containing one single record per page. Don’t forget to set the same custom format as you did for your page!
• upload this PDF in SeaTable in a File column. In the considered table, you’ll also need another File column for the combined PDF
• create a Python script and run it on the considered row. Here is the code, with few explanations:

from math import floor, ceil
from pypdf import PaperSize, PdfReader, PdfWriter, Transformation
from seatable_api import Base,context

base = Base(context.api_token,context.server_url)
base.auth()

TABLE_NAME = 'Catalogue'
ONE_RECORD_PER_PAGE_PDF_COLUMN = 'File'
COMBINED_PDF_COLUMN = 'Res'

CUSTOM_WIDTH = 395
CUSTOM_HEIGHT = 280

OUTPUT_FORMAT_WIDTH = PaperSize.A4.width
OUTPUT_FORMAT_HEIGHT = PaperSize.A4.height

# Read source file
base.download_file(context.current_row[ONE_RECORD_PER_PAGE_PDF_COLUMN][0]['url'],context.current_row[ONE_RECORD_PER_PAGE_PDF_COLUMN][0]['name'])
reader = PdfReader(context.current_row[ONE_RECORD_PER_PAGE_PDF_COLUMN][0]['name'])

number_of_items = len(reader.pages)

number_of_cols = floor(OUTPUT_FORMAT_WIDTH/CUSTOM_WIDTH)+1
number_of_rows = floor(OUTPUT_FORMAT_HEIGHT/CUSTOM_HEIGHT)+1

number_of_pages = ceil(number_of_items/(number_of_cols*number_of_rows))

print(f"{number_of_items} items > {number_of_pages} pages of {number_of_rows} x {number_of_cols}")

# Create a destination file, and add a blank page to it
writer = PdfWriter()

for y in range(number_of_pages):
  destpage = writer.add_blank_page(width=OUTPUT_FORMAT_WIDTH, height=OUTPUT_FORMAT_HEIGHT)
  page_idx = y*number_of_cols*number_of_rows
  for row in range(number_of_rows):
    for col in range(number_of_cols):
      if page_idx < number_of_items:
        destpage.merge_transformed_page(
          reader.pages[page_idx],
          Transformation().translate(
              col * reader.pages[page_idx].mediabox.width,
              OUTPUT_FORMAT_HEIGHT - (row+1) * reader.pages[page_idx].mediabox.height,
          ),
      )
      page_idx += 1

writer.write("output.pdf")
info_dict = base.upload_local_file("output.pdf", name=None, file_type='file', replace=True) 
base.update_row(TABLE_NAME, context.current_row['_id'], {COMBINED_PDF_COLUMN: [info_dict]})
    
print('Uploaded PDF file')

You’ll have to modify few variables at the beginning of the script:

• TABLE_NAME: the table containing the PDF
• ONE_RECORD_PER_PAGE_PDF_COLUMN: the column containing the initial (one record per page) PDF file
• COMBINED_PDF_COLUMN: the column where you’ll store the resulting combined PDF
• CUSTOM_WIDTH: the custom width you set in the Page Design plugin
• CUSTOM_HEIGHT: the custom height you set in the Page Design plugin
• OUTPUT_FORMAT_WIDTH: the width of the output PDF
• OUTPUT_FORMAT_HEIGHT: the height of the output PDF

For those last two variables, the pypdf library offers variables for All Din-A paper sizes (as you can see, in this example I used the variables for A4 format : PaperSize.A4.width and PaperSize.A4.height. If you want to use an inch-based format, just multiply the size in inch by 72 (dpi).

Here are few tips to calculate an appropriate item format in Page Design (ready for an headache? ). Your page size should ideally be a fraction of your output document but the Page Design plugin and the pypdf library don’t consider the same resolution, so you have to take that into account : pypdf works with a 72 dpi, whereas SeaTable Page Design plugin uses a 96 dpi. So for my example of an A4 document:

• pypdf gives me PaperSize.A4.width = 595 (210 mm / 25.4 to get the width in inch * 72dpi - the resolution) and PaperSize.A4.height = 842 (297 mm / 25.4 to get the height in inch * 72 - the resolution)
• to get the corresponding 96dpi-based size for the Page Design plugin, I’ll use the same formula but I’ll multiply by 96 instead of 72, so I now have ~ 793 x 1123
• If I imagine having 2 columns x 4 rows of items on my A4 page (portrait orientation), the max size of my item will be 793/2 ≈ 396.5 (width) x 1123/2 ≈ 561, so I can choose I custom format something like 395 * 500

I realize that it’s really complex, but I hope this might still help you.

Bests,
Benjamin

[Renel]

Thank you Benjamin, I will try your suggestion.