NEW  Understanding the PDF Merge rendering module

The PDF Merge rendering module is one of the more powerful rendering modules. The module is particularly useful for rendering documents that are related to each other as a set and that should appear together as a single document. The documents can be related by Meridian Enterprise references or they can have a Meridian Enterprise property value in common.

The module itself does not render the documents but detects the documents that are related to a submitted document and submits them for rendering. The actual rendering is performed by the other rendering modules that have been configured to process the related documents' file extensions. Therefore, all file extensions that are expected to be merged together must be specified in publishing jobs with a configured rendering module. After the set of related documents have been rendered by the other modules, the PDF Merge module combines the renderings into a single Adobe PDF file.

Examples of related documents that can be rendered together:

• A cover sheet containing a list of documents and all of the related documents such as CAD drawings, MS Office documents, images, and so on.
• A set of related CAD drawings that must be considered as a single document.

Besides providing options that determine which documents are rendered and merged together, options are also available to control the order that the documents appear within the merged rendition. For more information about the options, see NEW Configuring the PDF Merge rendering module options.