04-01-2020, 03:52 AM
Let me first describe what I've tried unsuccessfully to do. When scanning a large fakebook, I insist on having the page numbers within a .PDF match the page numbers in the printed source (although I know others have a different view; for me, it simplifies workflow and quality control). But every fakebook is paginated differently, with varying numbers of non-musical pages thrown in at various points (indices, TOCs, photos, poster art, etc.) using various systems of pagination or non-pagination, all of which material I like to include in my .PDF files.
What I've been doing is including the extraneous material wherever in the .PDF that I need to in order to keep the page numbering of the songs themselves in sync with the printed book. For example, if there are 5 photo pages at the beginning and the first song is paginated as page 1, I simply move the photo pages to the end of the .PDF. When I create .PDF bookmarks, I include them in their newly-assigned page position for easy access.
Since I always create the entire fakebook as a separate song (in addition to each song as a song), so that I have the choice of experiencing it as a whole like the printed original, I thought what I'd do is simply restore the original order of the fakebook by using the page range feature to move the extraneous pages back to their original published order. So for a book with covers and photos unpaginated at the beginning that I've moved to the end of the .PDF, I simply re-order the page range in my book-as-one-song (e.g. 500-504,1-499). And, indeed, it displays exactly like the original!
Here's the problem: When I attempt to navigate within the book-as-one-song, using PDF bookmark navigation, all the bookmarks take me to the wrong page. What I think is happening is that MSP is not respecting the PDF bookmark's reference to page within the .PDF and instead is attempting to display the page that corresponds to the PDF bookmark's page number within the custom-rearranged song. As a simple example, if I load the book-as-song, and attempt to navigate via PDF bookmark to page 1 (of the PDF), it takes me instead to page 500 of the PDF, because my custom song page order has put PDF pages 500-504 (the 5 photo pages) ahead of real page 1. In my opinion, the PDF Bookmarks should always navigate to the PDF page, not the song page, regardless of in what order the PDF-as-song is being displayed by virtue of custom pagination. IOW, functions within MSP that utitlize PDF Bookmarks should respect what that PDF Bookmark represents within the PDF independently of MSP.
Here's a typical usage that I'm experiencing now in attempting to prepare a Broadway fakebook for .CSV import. I have a book that puts many pages of good stuff at the beginning, including short synopses of each Broadway show whose songs are in the book. What would be useful to me is to create separate "songs" for each show (in addition to a "song" for each song), in which the matching synopsis page would appear first, together with any posters or other extraneous material included in the book relating to that show. MSP certainly allows that--a great feature. But when I load that show-as-song and attempt to navigate within it using PDF Bookmarks, I'd like PDF Bookmark page 108 to take me to page 108 of the PDF NOT to whatever "page" (if any) happens to be 108 pages from the beginning of the show-as-song I created. We've discussed before (and you've resolved) the problem of accessing a PDF bookmark within a single song that has fewer pages than the PDF--basically, you just disabled PDF navigation to pages that don't exist in the current song. But this is more fundamental--imagine that I created my synopsis-then-songs order WITHIN the PDF-as-one-song by using custom page display ranges for the entire PDF. Now I load the entire PDF as one song and wish to use my carefully-created PDF Bookmarks to navigate from one show to another, always seeing the show's synopsis first and then the individual songs within the show. IOW, all the pages of the PDF are loaded, so there would appear to be no good reason why the PDF Bookmark at page 108 shouldn't take me to PDF page 108 even if that happens to be the first page in my custom page display range for that PDF-as-song. Sorry for the long-winded description--hope it was clear.
Simply put, if you're going to offer the user the ability to use pre-existing PDF bookmarks as one method of navigation (which is a very nice feature!), they should navigate to the same page that they would navigate to if using that PDF outside of MSP.
What I've been doing is including the extraneous material wherever in the .PDF that I need to in order to keep the page numbering of the songs themselves in sync with the printed book. For example, if there are 5 photo pages at the beginning and the first song is paginated as page 1, I simply move the photo pages to the end of the .PDF. When I create .PDF bookmarks, I include them in their newly-assigned page position for easy access.
Since I always create the entire fakebook as a separate song (in addition to each song as a song), so that I have the choice of experiencing it as a whole like the printed original, I thought what I'd do is simply restore the original order of the fakebook by using the page range feature to move the extraneous pages back to their original published order. So for a book with covers and photos unpaginated at the beginning that I've moved to the end of the .PDF, I simply re-order the page range in my book-as-one-song (e.g. 500-504,1-499). And, indeed, it displays exactly like the original!
Here's the problem: When I attempt to navigate within the book-as-one-song, using PDF bookmark navigation, all the bookmarks take me to the wrong page. What I think is happening is that MSP is not respecting the PDF bookmark's reference to page within the .PDF and instead is attempting to display the page that corresponds to the PDF bookmark's page number within the custom-rearranged song. As a simple example, if I load the book-as-song, and attempt to navigate via PDF bookmark to page 1 (of the PDF), it takes me instead to page 500 of the PDF, because my custom song page order has put PDF pages 500-504 (the 5 photo pages) ahead of real page 1. In my opinion, the PDF Bookmarks should always navigate to the PDF page, not the song page, regardless of in what order the PDF-as-song is being displayed by virtue of custom pagination. IOW, functions within MSP that utitlize PDF Bookmarks should respect what that PDF Bookmark represents within the PDF independently of MSP.
Here's a typical usage that I'm experiencing now in attempting to prepare a Broadway fakebook for .CSV import. I have a book that puts many pages of good stuff at the beginning, including short synopses of each Broadway show whose songs are in the book. What would be useful to me is to create separate "songs" for each show (in addition to a "song" for each song), in which the matching synopsis page would appear first, together with any posters or other extraneous material included in the book relating to that show. MSP certainly allows that--a great feature. But when I load that show-as-song and attempt to navigate within it using PDF Bookmarks, I'd like PDF Bookmark page 108 to take me to page 108 of the PDF NOT to whatever "page" (if any) happens to be 108 pages from the beginning of the show-as-song I created. We've discussed before (and you've resolved) the problem of accessing a PDF bookmark within a single song that has fewer pages than the PDF--basically, you just disabled PDF navigation to pages that don't exist in the current song. But this is more fundamental--imagine that I created my synopsis-then-songs order WITHIN the PDF-as-one-song by using custom page display ranges for the entire PDF. Now I load the entire PDF as one song and wish to use my carefully-created PDF Bookmarks to navigate from one show to another, always seeing the show's synopsis first and then the individual songs within the show. IOW, all the pages of the PDF are loaded, so there would appear to be no good reason why the PDF Bookmark at page 108 shouldn't take me to PDF page 108 even if that happens to be the first page in my custom page display range for that PDF-as-song. Sorry for the long-winded description--hope it was clear.
Simply put, if you're going to offer the user the ability to use pre-existing PDF bookmarks as one method of navigation (which is a very nice feature!), they should navigate to the same page that they would navigate to if using that PDF outside of MSP.