Merging and Splitting PDF files

We all use and rely on PDF's. There are occasions though when you want to edit certain portions of a pdf and merge the edited version back in main pdf document. 

Splitting the pdf files : This is probably the simpler step. All you need to do is use in build tools on your Microsoft Windows. Follow the below instructions

1. Open the pdf in default pdf tool on your system. The best and most popular being Adobe Acrobat Reader. Fire the Print command ( File -> Print or Ctrl+P). 
2. In the print option, choose Microsoft Print to PDF as the Printer.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Select the number of pages you need in the first document.
4. Repeat the process for remaining section.

 

Merging the pdf files: For merging the pdf files you can use the merge files options in Adobe Acrobat Reader, but remember this requires a premium license of tool. What I recommend is a utility named PDF Merger and Splitter. 

1. Go to Microsoft store
2. Search for PDF Merger and Splitter
   
   
   
   
   
3. Launch the application once its installed on your system
4. Click on Merge PDF
5. Drag drop pdf files you need to merge, arrange them in order
6. Finally click the merge pdf button in right bottom area of application.

Edge Tabs showing up Alt + Tab ?

 Windows team recently launched a feature which shows your tabs in Edge browser in Alt+Tab along with applications. 

While this can be helpful to certain users, it can also been annoying when you have a large number of tabs or just do not want the tabs to show up in application switcher view.

Here is how you can control number of tabs which show up in Alt+Tab, or completely disable if you want it.

1. Go to Windows -> Settings and search for Multitasking settings

    

2. Scroll Down to Alt+Tab section, from here you can restrict windows to show all or only 3 or 5 edge tabs. You can completely disable edge tabs by selecting Open Windows Only option

"Hello World" : Azure Functions Tutorial

Creating a new service in cloud comes with all sorts of boiler plate tasks, managing a VM, managing deployments, keeping the software's updated etc. Azure Functions, enables a developer to just focus on small functionality pieces and underlying infrastructures takes care of all the boilerplate.

Azure Functions support a variety of trigger points, ranging from HTTP, Webhooks, Event grids, IOT and many more. For a complete list look up here.

Azure functions, just like conventional Serverless computing stack, brings in financial savings. You pay per the resources you use, instead of paying for reserved resources upfront.

Azure functions, triggered via HTTP developing and managing REST apis super simple, removing most of the boiler plate out of the way.

Visual Studio supports out of box and provides for a great interface for running and testing these functions locally as well as publishing directly to Azure cloud.
It does support few languages, obviously C# and in addition F#, Javascript etc.

Lets get started with our hello world example

1. Create a new project in Visual studio and Choose Azure Functions as template


2. Choose Http Trigger as type of Azure Function application



3. To run the project locally, just run the project, should launch the console and lets you know the endpoint on localhost, to be used for firing the apis



4. To test the application, use POSTMAN application to fire the api published on console, example  :http://localhost:7071/api/Function1




Publishing the project on Microsoft Azure if straightforward from here

1. Right click on project from Solution Explorer
2. Choose Publish



3. One you choose the right subscription setting, application would get published as a Azure Function.

4. Just like local setup, you can test it from Postman via an api like : http://mysite.azurewebsites.net/api/SampleFunction