How can I create a PDF file from an Inkscape SVG with multiple pages?

Question

I have an SVG file that was created in Inkscape. It's the layout of a page for a book that is like a diary, so every page is exactly the same.

The printing service that I will be using to make a hard cover book from this layout can't just repeat the page when they print it, I need to provide a PDF file that has the same layout replicated on every individual page.

What I want to be able to do is create a PDF from my Inkscape file that has 185 pages, each page exactly the same. Is there a utility or something that can do this (in Windows)?

(Right now the only way I can think to do this is import the SVG into a program like LibreOffice and copy/paste the image to every page, but, that's a little tedious.)

Answer 1

Inkscape has no native multi page support. There used to be a plug-in for multiple pages, but I'm not sure if it still works in the most recent version of Inkscape since the developer seems to have abandoned updates. Instead, I suggest you use Scribus which is also free and Open Source.

1. Export the page from Inkscape as a PDF, using File > Save As, and choose PDF as the file type

2. Open Scribus and create a new blank single page document

3. Click and drag the PDF you made previously into Scribus, and position it as required on the page

4. Click Page > Convert to Master Page, and give your Master Page a name you can easily find later

5. Click Page > Insert

6. Select the Master Page you already set up in the drop down, and set the required number of pages to insert. Click OK

7. Click File > Export > Save as PDF

Answer 2

You can export the single page into PDF, then use pdftk or a similar tool to merge copies of the same page into a big PDF in the end.

To merge all pdf files from a folder execute in that folder:

pdftk *.pdf cat output newfile.pdf

Ideally, you would feed that same single page as many times as you need to the pdftk command and end up with the large PDF, without having to actually copy the single page at all. I'm not that level of bash wizard, maybe someone else can pitch in with that. You can probably get it done with xargs repeating the same command as many times as you need.

Alternatively, you can temporarily create as many copies of the page you need and then merge them. After you get the big file in the end delete all the identical single pages.

From https://askubuntu.com/questions/516263/how-to-copy-a-certain-file-several-times-with-a-regular-ending

to make more duplicates to a file, you can combine cp with xargs

echo file-{001..200} | xargs -n 1 cp file

will copy file to file-001, file-002,... ,file-200. See man xargs for more info.

Then you can use pdftk command from above to merge all the copies. Delete the single pages once you have your big file.

Answer 3

Another option would be https://gitlab.com/su-v/inx-exportobjects - it works with Inkscape 0.92.x, and also supports a common background.