Friday, January 25, 2008

TiffPaging and TiffSplitter - edit multi-page TIFF's

Yesterday I finally moved to a new auto insurance company*, and I was sent an email attachment of the application I had to fill out and send back. The file was a 600-kilobyte TIFF, and when I opened it, it only showed the cover page. I called the insurance company again to ask for the rest of the pages, and I was told the rest of the pages were all in that file.

Turns out, TIFF files, liked PDF's, can have multiple pages. I didn't know this, because who the hell still uses TIFF's? They do, apparently. Anyway, I saw the other pages in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer by clicking the page buttons:

Who knew those were there?

Anyway, I then had to open the pages and send them back. For that, I turned to two programs: TiffSplitter and Tiff Merger Deluxe.

TiffSplitter takes the files and splits them into separate files. They can be exported as separate Tiff's or Jpegs (I stuck with the Tiff's), and rotated. It was a very simple process, and I was able to do as I pleased with the pages.


Afterwards, I wanted to send the file back in the exact same format, as one Tiff, so I used Tiff Merger Deluxe, which merges separate Tiff pages back to one. Unfortunately, the demo version only allowed merging up to 10 pages at a time, so I had to split the 16 page document into two anyway. Otherwise, a really simple procedure as well (I suggest clicking "Add Directory" if all your Tiff's are located in one folder, like mine was).


Honestly though, I'd gone through over a decade of computer usage and never came upon multi-page Tiffs until now, and I doubt I'll come upon it again in the future. Both these files are shareware, but I can't find myself using either of them enough to keep them installed. As soon as I finish this article I'll be uninstalling these programs.

Meanwhile, though, I couldn't find freeware apps that did just these things (I couldn't even find just one program that both split and merged). Does anybody know of any?

* I switched to AIS auto-insurance, the company that's been advertised for the longest time on 106.7 KROQ in Los Angeles with "interviewed testimonials" by one of the DJ's with listeners who couldn't believe the dopey commercials were real and that AIS could actually save them money.

But they did! The online quote gave me an option that was 400 dollars a year cheaper than my current premium, which I was fine with, but when I followed up with a call, they told me of even more discounts that I didn't know about. In the end I was able to get the same coverage (PLUS rental car service) for 600 dollars a year LESS than my previous service. Incredible!

If you're really interested, just check out the personal page of the guy who took my call, Carlos Godinez . If you mention my name when you get your quote, I get a 5 dollar gas card, and if you actually switch to AIS, I get a $25 dollar Target gift card!

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