Ipdfunite Processor

Purpose

Merges PDFs from subdirectories into one PDF per subdirectory. Native (in-process, using lopdf; no external tools required). An in-process alternative to pdfunite, with the same configuration apart from command and args.

How It Works

Built for course/module workflows, where the slide decks of a course live in one directory and an upstream processor (usually marp) renders each deck to PDF:

Every file with extension source_ext under source_dir is found and grouped by its directory.
For each directory, the PDF the upstream processor made from each file is located under source_output_dir, at the same relative path with a .pdf extension.
Those PDFs are merged, in file-name order, into <output_dir>/<directory>.pdf.

marp/courses/rust/01-intro.md  ->  out/processor.generator.marp/courses/rust/01-intro.pdf  ┐
marp/courses/rust/02-types.md  ->  out/processor.generator.marp/courses/rust/02-types.pdf  ┴> out/processor.generator.ipdfunite/rust.pdf

The input PDFs are declared as the product’s inputs, so the merge runs after the upstream processor has produced them and reruns when any of them changes.

Bookmarks (outlines) of the input PDFs are not carried over to the merged PDF.

Source Files

Input: PDFs under source_output_dir that correspond to the source_ext files under source_dir
Output: out/processor.generator.ipdfunite/<directory>.pdf, one per source directory

Configuration

[processor.generator.ipdfunite]
source_dir = "marp/courses"                         # Directory containing course subdirectories
source_ext = ".md"                                  # Extension of the source files in them
source_output_dir = "out/processor.generator.marp"  # Where the upstream processor put the PDFs

Key	Type	Default	Description
`source_dir`	string	`"marp/courses"`	Directory containing course subdirectories
`source_ext`	string	`".md"`	Extension of the source files to look for
`source_output_dir`	string	`"out/processor.generator.marp"`	Directory where the upstream processor writes the PDFs
`output_dir`	string	`"out/processor.generator.ipdfunite"`	Output directory for merged PDFs
`dep_inputs`	string[]	`[]`	Extra files whose changes trigger rebuilds

Batch support

Each directory is merged individually, producing its own output file. Merges run one at a time (max_jobs is capped at 1).

Clean behavior

This processor is a Generator — rsconstruct clean outputs removes each declared output file individually with no directory recursion. After all per-product cleans complete, the orchestrator removes any parent directories that are now empty. Pass --no-empty-dirs to keep them. See Clean behavior and rsconstruct clean.

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