Import PDF: Import PDF pages as links opens each page linked to its file

File › Open's Import PDF dialog gets Import PDF pages as links. With it on,
each page picked opens as a placed document linked to that page of the
file, on an artboard of its Crop To box and a layer named after the page,
in place of editable art. The Links panel lists each page, and Embed makes
a page editable.

document.open takes the matching linkPages param. It is refused for a
file that is not a PDF or a PDF-compatible .ai, for bytes without a path,
with a password and with textAs: outlines. The pages share one copy of
the file, and the document opens in CMYK when most of its pages do.
Save asks for a name, as for other partly read PDFs.

docs/file-format-parity.md

@@ -281,7 +281,7 @@ Names in the editing data that aren't UTF-8 (layers, objects, artboards, colors,
 | VectorCraft `.vectorcraft` / `.vctemplate` | — | yes | yes | lossless JSON, versioned, save down to v1; property-tested round trips (`format/tests/prop_format.rs`); documents with a lot of path data are written as compact JSON, about a fifth of the size (#1492); a save falls back to a plain fsync and to writing elsewhere and copying in when the folder refuses the usual steps (#1625, #1649, part of #1620; not confirmed on a real network share); the size limits on embedded data also apply to files read from memory (#1783), and saving over a private file on Unix leaves no readable temporary copy beside it (#1778); a dynamic symbol's type (`dynamic` on the symbol) and an instance's appearance changes to its art (`symbol_overrides`, each path at most 64 deep, counted against the object budget) are written only when set, so documents without them save as before (#4938) |
 | Illustrator template `.ait` | open, save | yes | PDF-compatible only, from Save as Template (`.vctemplate` stays its default) | New from Template opens a saved `.ait` untitled with its layers and art (`tests_pdfedit.rs`) |
 | Illustrator `.ai` | open, save | yes (PDF-compatible + editing-data structure with template layers and ruler guides, File Info) | PDF-compatible, or legacy version 7 (layers and groups) | see above; no real-file corpus |
-| PDF | open, place, save | yes (authored ActualText in editable import, #6165; layers, masks, editable text, security, overprint, File Info from the XMP packet and the document information dictionary; Crop To › Trim takes the bleed box as the document's bleed) | yes (presets, PDF/X-1a/3/4, layers, marks and bleed, ICC, fast web view, 1.3+; objects' URLs as link annotations, not in PDF/X) | fuzzed import; shared guarded writer and windowed reader ([pdf-backend.md](pdf-backend.md)), metadata, incomplete-content and dependency-source regressions; PDF text opens where the file draws it, glyph by glyph (#722: kerning or none, spacing per character, text rise as baseline shift, vertical writing, justified text boxes); alpha soft masks drawn as images import with the mask (#1551); a clip only counts as covering the page when its shape does (#1542); a PDF another app copied pastes as editable vector art (#1499); letter-spaced type on a path keeps its length and its glyph-by-glyph stroke comes in as one text object (#1586, #1585); a crafted name tree with shared nodes no longer takes exponential time on open (#1781); fonts named with hyphens (`Noto-Sans-Bold`) or with a composite font's CMap (`Name-Identity-H`) find the installed family; invisible text (rendering mode 3: a scanned page's recognized text) opens as type with no fill or stroke and saves back as invisible, searchable text (#2675); PDF/X-1a and X-3 flattening in a CMYK document keeps CMYK inks where it rasterizes (#2160); an image mask (`/ImageMask true`) painted in a solid color opens as a grayscale image colorized by that color, a spot color keeping its swatch and tint, so Fill and Recolor Artwork reach it, and the same mask painted again in another color keeps that color (#6313); an image in a Separation space opens as a grayscale image of its tints colorized by its ink at 100 % (a spot swatch, a process plate or Registration), its soft mask as its opacity mask (#6314); a DeviceN image of one colorant opens the same way, and one of process plates only (the ink `None` may be among them) opens in CMYK with each colorant's tint in its plate (#6348)  PDF export keeps harakat and zero-advance Noto Arabic dot glyphs in one compatible batch per layout line, with per-glyph vertical offsets (#6309). `crates/pdf/src/tests/realtext.rs` (`mark_text_*`) checks decoded cluster mappings, mixed Arabic/Latin/digits, contour placement against outline export, vertical columns, differing path rotations and PDF/X-1a/3/4. Editable-text import preserves authored ActualText separately (#6165), with cross-line/style layout limits; separately styled or differently rotated clusters and external viewer search/copy remain outside this export-only evidence. |
+| PDF | open, place, save | yes (authored ActualText in editable import, #6165; layers, masks, editable text, security, overprint, File Info from the XMP packet and the document information dictionary; Crop To › Trim takes the bleed box as the document's bleed; Import PDF pages as links opens each page as a placed document linked to it, on its own artboard, `tests/placed_document.rs`) | yes (presets, PDF/X-1a/3/4, layers, marks and bleed, ICC, fast web view, 1.3+; objects' URLs as link annotations, not in PDF/X) | fuzzed import; shared guarded writer and windowed reader ([pdf-backend.md](pdf-backend.md)), metadata, incomplete-content and dependency-source regressions; PDF text opens where the file draws it, glyph by glyph (#722: kerning or none, spacing per character, text rise as baseline shift, vertical writing, justified text boxes); alpha soft masks drawn as images import with the mask (#1551); a clip only counts as covering the page when its shape does (#1542); a PDF another app copied pastes as editable vector art (#1499); letter-spaced type on a path keeps its length and its glyph-by-glyph stroke comes in as one text object (#1586, #1585); a crafted name tree with shared nodes no longer takes exponential time on open (#1781); fonts named with hyphens (`Noto-Sans-Bold`) or with a composite font's CMap (`Name-Identity-H`) find the installed family; invisible text (rendering mode 3: a scanned page's recognized text) opens as type with no fill or stroke and saves back as invisible, searchable text (#2675); PDF/X-1a and X-3 flattening in a CMYK document keeps CMYK inks where it rasterizes (#2160); an image mask (`/ImageMask true`) painted in a solid color opens as a grayscale image colorized by that color, a spot color keeping its swatch and tint, so Fill and Recolor Artwork reach it, and the same mask painted again in another color keeps that color (#6313); an image in a Separation space opens as a grayscale image of its tints colorized by its ink at 100 % (a spot swatch, a process plate or Registration), its soft mask as its opacity mask (#6314); a DeviceN image of one colorant opens the same way, and one of process plates only (the ink `None` may be among them) opens in CMYK with each colorant's tint in its plate (#6348)  PDF export keeps harakat and zero-advance Noto Arabic dot glyphs in one compatible batch per layout line, with per-glyph vertical offsets (#6309). `crates/pdf/src/tests/realtext.rs` (`mark_text_*`) checks decoded cluster mappings, mixed Arabic/Latin/digits, contour placement against outline export, vertical columns, differing path rotations and PDF/X-1a/3/4. Editable-text import preserves authored ActualText separately (#6165), with cross-line/style layout limits; separately styled or differently rotated clusters and external viewer search/copy remain outside this export-only evidence. |
 | EPS | open, place, save | yes (own PostScript L3 interpreter, Illustrator EPS editing data structure) | yes (L2/L3, TIFF previews) | CIDFonts the file doesn't carry not drawn, but for those over a predefined CMap (`UniJIS-UCS2-H`, `90ms-RKSJ-H`, `GBK-EUC-H`, `KSCms-UHC-H`, `ETen-B5-H`), set as type in the font of the CIDFont's name, vertical over a `-V` CMap; a name that ends in the row-and-cell CMap `H` or `V` splits off the CMap only when the file defines the CIDFont of that name, or the name has a hyphen and an installed face that covers Japanese has it; name-keyed fonts in a FontSet set as type by name; #505; images encoded with `CCITTFaxDecode` (ITU-T T.4 Group 3 and T.6 Group 4, with `K`, `Columns`, `Rows`, `EndOfBlock`, `EndOfLine`, `EncodedByteAlign` and `BlackIs1`) draw, and damaged data keeps the rows decoded before its first damaged row; Type 42 (TrueType) fonts set type at its size (#1553); an embedded Type 1 font's encrypted part is read for its glyphs, which space its type, outline it and draw glyphs without a character, in plain and composite fonts; a Type 42 font that carries its TrueType font gives each code its character by its glyph name or, for names that say nothing (`/g12`), by the glyph's entry in the font's own character map, spaces its type by its own widths and draws glyphs that stand for no character from its outlines; the show operators' spacing along the baseline (`ashow`, `widthshow`, `xshow`, `yshow`, `xyshow`, and the moves of `kshow`'s procedure, run between each two characters) is kept on live type as tracking, so type in a font that isn't installed keeps the file's line lengths (spacing that moves characters off the baseline, as `yshow`, `xyshow` or a `kshow` procedure can, places each character as its own text object); composite (Type 0) fonts with the 8/8 mapping, as PDF-to-PostScript converters write two-byte fonts, draw a Type 42 descendant's glyphs from the TrueType outlines it carries and an embedded Type 1 descendant's from its charstrings, and set other descendants' characters as type at the composite font's size (other mappings are still set as type in the font of their name); CID-keyed fonts (`composefont`, `FMapType` 9 over a CMap built with the CIDInit operators or `Identity-H`/`Identity-V`; `bfchar` and `bfrange` mappings give a base-font descendant its codes or glyph names) draw the glyphs of the Type 0 CIDFonts (Type 1 charstrings in their `StartData` binary data or `GlyphDirectory`) and Type 2 CIDFonts (TrueType glyphs through `CIDMap`) they carry, and the CID-keyed fonts of a FontSet's Compact Font Format data (Type 2 charstrings); a clip only counts as covering the page when its shape does (#1542); an EPS another app copied pastes as editable vector art (`clipboard.importEps`, #1499); a stitched shading keeps its hard colour changes on import (#1654); sampled functions (type 0) interpolate between their samples, multilinearly or by cubics with `Order 3`, and a sampled axial or radial gradient has a stop at each sample; a gradient the page paints as a row of abutting one-colour strips (as Level 2 writers draw smooth shades) imports as one linear gradient, without the seams the strips leave when each is drawn alone; CMYK images, CMYK JPEGs included, keep their ink amounts on import, as from PDF, and the pixels a `MaskColor` or `ImageType 3` mask hides become a grayscale opacity mask; ruzstd 0.9.1 for compressed editing data (#1807, RUSTSEC-2026-0344) |
 | PostScript `.ps` | open, place | yes (the EPS reader reads its first page; `.epsf` files open and place as EPS) | via Print to PostScript | `tests_epsimport.rs` |
 | DCS 1.0 / 2.0 | place linked | place linked only (one image of the plates; spot plates as spot swatches; the composite's clipping path; each plate on its own ink in Separations Preview and print separations) | no | `crates/eps/src/dcs/tests.rs`, `crates/engine/src/tests/dcs.rs` |

docs/mcp.md

@@ -1248,6 +1248,15 @@ empty `boxes`, and `thumbnail: 1` shows what that page prints. A page whose `Use
 opens at its size in points, the file's numbers times the `UserUnit` (one above 75,000 counts as 75,000), and
 `document.pdfInfo` gives its size and boxes in points too. A `.ai` whose editing data has its artboards in the units of
 such a page opens from that data at the page's size.
+`linkPages: true` (File › Open's Import PDF dialog: Import PDF pages as links) opens each page `pages` picks as a
+placed document linked to that page of the file, as `file.place` with `link` places one, instead of as editable art.
+Each page gets an artboard of its `cropTo` box (`bounding`: its art's bounds), in a row from the left 36 pt apart, and
+a layer named after the page (`Page 2`). The document opens in CMYK when most of those pages are painted mostly in
+CMYK, unless `colorMode` names a mode. All the pages' objects share one copy of the file. The Links panel lists each
+page, and `links.embed` makes a page editable art.
+`document.open` refuses `linkPages` for a file that is not a PDF or a PDF-compatible `.ai`, for a file given as
+`dataBase64` without a path, with a `password`, and with `textAs: "outlines"`, and rejects a `linkPages` that is not
+true or false. Save then asks for a name.
 `document.open`, `file.place` and `document.pdfInfo` reject a `cropTo`, `crop`, `password`, `colorMode` or `textAs`
 that is not a string, and `document.pdfInfo` rejects a `thumbnailSize` that is not a number. The error names the param,
 and nothing opens or is placed. Leaving a param out or giving null keeps its default.
@@ -1263,6 +1272,7 @@ CMYK too.
 ```json
 {"name":"run_command","arguments":{"command":"document.pdfInfo","params":{"path":"/tmp/brochure.pdf","thumbnail":2,"cropTo":"trim"}}}
 {"name":"run_command","arguments":{"command":"document.open","params":{"path":"/tmp/brochure.pdf","pages":"2-3","cropTo":"trim"}}}
+{"name":"run_command","arguments":{"command":"document.open","params":{"path":"/tmp/brochure.pdf","linkPages":true}}}
 ```
 
 PostScript files (`.eps`, `.epsf`, `.ps`, and `.ai` files saved in older formats or without PDF compatibility) open through the EPS