How to typeset a "flatplan" / "page plan" from external images

Question

I have a multipage PDF file (which I can export as a set of images) and need to typeset it as flatplan. It should look something like this:

Example of a flatplan

I can create such plans by hand but I'm looking for nice way to create page-plans programmatically.

I have no experience with it, but I think one could use TikZ for this, as it allows embedding of external images. My first thoughts were that one could (ab)use the matrix environment or maybe use the groupplots library to arrange the pictures. As I'm new to TikZ any advise would be welcome.

Welcome to TeX.SX! You can have a look at our starter guide to familiarize yourself further with our format. It isn't clear what the criteria are here or what you are trying to do exactly. It is one thing to layout pre-arranged pages in a grid. It is another to create the page layouts. And I'm not sure why you want to use tikz. graphics can use external images. (And the code is better according to tikz's documentation.) Why not just use a tabular? — cfr, Aug 05 '14 at 01:11
Hi, thanks for the welcome! Sorry for being unclear. After some experiments (using pdfpages did not work out...) I posted a possible solution as an answer down below, that can surly be improved. I hope this illustrates my problem a bit better. — daniel, Aug 06 '14 at 12:17

daniel · Answer 1 · 2014-08-06T12:22:12.967

My own attempt

After some trial and error, this is my current attempt so far:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[a4paper,margin=2cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{multido}

\def\filename{test.pdf}
\def\scale{.05}

\pdfximage{\filename}

\newcount\N  % counter for the last doublepage spread
\N=\pdflastximagepages\relax
\advance\N by -1\relax 
\divide\N by 2\relax

\begin{document}
\begin{figure}[p]
    \centering
    \fbox{\includegraphics[scale=\scale,page=1]{\filename}}
    \multido{\ileft=2+2,\iright=3+2}{\the\N}{%
        \fbox{%
            \includegraphics[scale=\scale,page=\ileft]{\filename}
            \includegraphics[scale=\scale,page=\iright]{\filename}
        }
    }
    \fbox{\includegraphics[scale=\scale,page=\the\pdflastximagepages]{\filename}}
    \caption{A Flatplan}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

With an 139-page magazine as test.pdf this is the result: Result .

Still missing

Page numbers beneath the individual pictures, flushed left/right

Known Problems

Only works with pdflatex
The figure is cut of if it is taller than the page

Paul Gessler · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-19T03:27:25.973

Nice work on your solution! Someone may come along with a better way to do this, but I've taken your code, added the page numbers, and solved the page height problem. I also added a conditional for the last page, to check if it was already printed as part of the last double-page spread.

For my example, I used the biblatex manual which should be available with any TeX distribution, since I didn't have your magazine file.

For the page numbers: I used \llap{<number>} and \rlap{<number>} to place the page number over the included pdfs, without using any additional space. If you wanted to do any additional styling (colors, sizing, font shape, potentially boxes, etc.) this could all be added inside the \Xlap arguments. If you plan to do this, I'd suggest defining a macro, so the style can be defined in one place and used in all the various \llap and \rlap commands.

For the page height problem: Any float is not allowed to break across a page, and hence cannot exceed \textheight. But there is no reason the graphics need to be inside a float. I used \captionof{figure}{A Flatplan} (from the capt-of package) to include the caption without the figure environment.

For the last page: If the last page is odd (as is the case with the biblatex manual), your solution would print it twice: once as the right half of the final double-page spread, and another time as a page on its own. I added a conditional expression to only output the final single page if the last page is not odd (AKA even).

Complete Code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[a4paper,margin=2cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{multido}
\usepackage{capt-of} % added for caption without float

\def\filename{biblatex.pdf}
\def\scale{.05}

\pdfximage{\filename}

\newcount\N  % counter for the last doublepage spread
\N=\pdflastximagepages\relax
\advance\N by -1\relax 
\divide\N by 2\relax

\begin{document}
    \centering
%    \hspace{\dimexpr(8.5in*\scale)/2\relax}
    \fbox{\includegraphics[scale=\scale,page=1]{\filename}\llap{1}}
    \multido{\ileft=2+2,\iright=3+2}{\the\N}{%
        \fbox{%
            \rlap{\ileft}\includegraphics[scale=\scale,page=\ileft]{\filename}
            \includegraphics[scale=\scale,page=\iright]{\filename}\llap{\iright}%
        }
    }
    \ifodd\the\pdflastximagepages\else% only output the last page if not already included with a spread
         \fbox{\rlap{\the\pdflastximagepages}\includegraphics[scale=\scale,page=\the\pdflastximagepages]{\filename}}
    \fi
    \captionof{figure}{A Flatplan}
\end{document}

Output:

enter image description here