Converting .xopp files to .pdf and vice versa on windows (fast)

[leonausp]

Hello
I want to use xournalpp for my study notes, but it is a real pain having to convert every single file per hand when finished. It would be really cool if i could at least convert all .xopp files in a folder to .pdf format and vice versa. It would save me so much time!
Does anyone know how to do that? (btw: I'm using windows)
It would really help me a lot.
Thanks!

[rolandlo]

First please note it is xournalpp, not xournalapp.
Converting all xopp-files to pdf is easy in a console using bash:

for file in *.xopp; do echo Processing $file; xournalpp -p "${file%.*}"_export.pdf $file; done

Since you are on Windows, you don't have a console using bash right away, but you could install MSYS2 for that purpose. That will also solve your problem with not getting console output.

[leonausp]

Hello
Thanks very much for the reply, I changed it to xounalpp now.
So I installed MSYS2 now, but it's still not doing anything.
Do I maybe have to deinstall the .exe and download it this this way for it to work?

[rolandlo]

No, you don't need to build from source. You should start xournalpp from the MSYS2 console. You can start it from the start menu.

[leonausp]

Ok, I did that.
Now I get:

for file in *.xopp; do echo Processing $file; xournalpp -p "${file%.*}"_export.pdf $file; done
Processing *.xopp
-bash: xournalpp: command not found

[rolandlo]

In the MSYS2 console you should change directory first. Assuming default installation folder this should work:

cd "/C/Program Files/Xournal++/bin"
./xournalpp.exe

[leonausp]

Ok, I did that.
Now I get:

for file in *.xopp; do echo Processing $file; xournalpp -p "${file%.*}"_export.pdf $file; done
Processing *.xopp
-bash: xournalpp: command not found

[rolandlo]

Ok, one thing I missed in that script: since you don't have the Xournal++ bin folder in your PATH, you need the absolute path for xournalpp:

for file in *.xopp; do echo Processing $file; "/C/Program Files/Xournal++/bin/xournalpp.exe" -p "${file%.*}"_export.pdf $file; done

Secondly you need to execute the command in the folder where you have the .xopp files to convert. That is, cd into that folder instead of the Xournal++ bin folder.

[leonausp]

Thanks a lot! It worked, I was a bit dumb sorry, but now I'm happy it works :)
Do you have any idea how to make it recognize German characters (ä, ü, ö, etc.)? I tried it with a file named "Gemälde.xopp" and that threw an error, when I deleted the "ä" it worked flawlessly.

And sorry to bother you any further, but is there any chance that this could work backwards too, so that it can make a .xopp file for every pdf in a folder? (I tried replacing .xopp with pdf, and pdf with .opp but that didn't work)

[rolandlo]

On Linux special characters (like ä, ö, ü) don't seem to pose problems. On Windows it does for me as well. It might be something Xournal++ does wrong with the encoding. Feel free to open a bug report about that.
For a workaround you could just use a command to replace all special characters like in the chosen answer to this question

[rolandlo]

Here is a little bash script pdf2xopp.sh I hacked together to create a .xopp-file from a .pdf-file:
pdf2xopp.zip

Just extract it and make it executable. Remember to always check scripts before executing them blindly. You must have mupdf-tools installed to make it work. It is required for extracting the number of pages and width and height from the pages. On Ubuntu it can be installed via

sudo apt install mupdf-tools

Usage:

./pdf2xopp input.pdf output.xopp

For batch conversion:

for file in *.pdf; do echo Processing $file; ./pdf2xopp.sh "$file" "${file%.*}".xopp; done

[flckf]

Thanks for the quick reply-yes I am on windows.

sorry but a few stupid questions.. I have tried to open a command window in the xournalpp.exe folder and run the command "xournalpp.exe --help-export" which doesn't bring up the extra options.

I have also tried to run the command for a single file:

"C:/Program Files/Xournal++/bin/xournalpp.exe" C:\New folder\1.xopp --save-i=1.png

Which doesn't work.. I assume I'm doing something obviously wrong?

Thanks again

[rolandlo]

On Windows, you don't get any output with the system provided cmd.exe. You would need to install MSYS2 and use that console to see the output.

In the command you used, you use the --save option which is only good to save a xopp-file for a PDF. As I wrote above, you need the -i option. For a single file:

"C:/Program Files/Xournal++/bin/xournalpp.exe" C:\New folder\1.xopp -i 1.png

It will write one png file per page.

[flckf]

ah right sorry I didn't realise the -i command needed MSYS2. I'll install it and try it out. Much appreciated

[rolandlo]

The -i option doesn't need MSYS2. Only getting command line output does.

[flckf]

ah right thanks- got it working! For some reason it doens't work on windows using code above- need to CD into the directory with the file and then run: "C:/Program Files/Xournal++/bin/xournalpp.exe" 1.xopp -i 1.png

For some reason even having the path to the .xopp file in the command doesn't work. Just in case that helps anyone else..

Last question- for the batch convert, is that command something I can enter into a command window? I've tried the command as you have written it in a command window (cd to the relevant directory) as well as trying:

for file in C:\New folder*.xopp; do echo Processing $file; "C:/Program Files/Xournal++/bin/xournalpp.exe" -i "${file%.*}".png $file; done

but I get a 'file was unexpected at this time' error... Any ideas?