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VellumPDF

Processing workflow

One recipe, saved once, applied to every folder.

Your files never leave your device

Ready-made recipes

Saved recipes

No saved recipe yet.

Build the recipe

Text recognition (OCR) is not offered in the workflow: too heavy to repeat across dozens of files. Run your scans through the dedicated OCR tool, before or after.

Add a first step above.

Available tokens: {nom} {n} {date} {chaine}

Drop your PDFs here

or click to browse your files

How to build a PDF processing chain, step by step

A chain stores a sequence of operations to run, in order, across a set of PDFs — handy for repeating the same document prep every week.

  1. Start from a ready-made recipe or build your own

    Pick “Yearly archiving”, “Sending to a client” or “Cleanup before publishing”, or add your own steps from the twelve available (the six from Batch, plus grayscale, sanitize, metadata, PDF/A, blank pages and straighten).

  2. Reorder and configure each step

    Use the arrows to move a step up or down, the cross to remove it, and set its own options right below it. The same step can appear more than once in a recipe.

  3. Follow the two enforced ordering rules

    “Protect” must always be the last step, and PDF/A cannot coexist with “Protect” in the same recipe. VellumPDF blocks the run and explains why until one of the two rules is met.

  4. Name the output files

    The naming pattern accepts the tokens {nom}, {n}, {date} and {chaine}, with a live preview that updates as you type.

  5. Drop in the documents and run the recipe

    Drag in your files or pick an entire folder, then click “Run the recipe on N documents”. A Cancel button stays available while it runs.

  6. Download, or save the recipe for later

    A file that fails at a step stops right there, without moving on to the next ones. The recipe can be saved locally or exported as a file, never with a password included.

Text recognition (OCR) does not exist as a chain step — too heavy to repeat across dozens of files: run your scans through the dedicated OCR tool, before or after the recipe.

Frequently asked questions

How does the processing workflow differ from batch processing?

Batch processing applies a single operation to several files. The workflow applies several operations in sequence, in the chosen order (for example straighten, then compress, then number), to several files at once.

Is the recipe sent anywhere so it can be reused?

No. It is saved in the browser (the device’s local storage). To share it with a colleague, export it as a small text file (.vellum-chaine.json): they then import it on their own machine, with no account and no intermediate server.

Why can “Protect” only be the last step of a recipe?

An encrypted PDF can no longer be opened or reprocessed without its password. Any step placed after “Protect” would therefore always fail the file: the interface refuses that order before the recipe is run.

Why are PDF/A and “Protect” incompatible in the same recipe?

The PDF/A standard forbids encrypting the document. A recipe containing both steps could never succeed: VellumPDF flags this while the recipe is being composed, rather than letting every file fail during processing.

Is text recognition (OCR) one of the available steps?

No, deliberately not: OCR is computationally expensive, and running it page by page across dozens of files within one recipe would be out of proportion with what the workflow tool should stay. Run your scans through the dedicated text-recognition tool before or after the workflow.

What happens if a file fails partway through the recipe?

Processing of that file stops at the step responsible, named next to its filename. The file never appears among the successes, not even partially: only files that made it through the whole recipe go into the downloaded archive.