README

Bulk Selection Expressions

What this does

• Lets you select pages using compact expressions instead of typing long CSV lists.
• Your input expression is preserved exactly as typed; we only expand it under the hood into concrete page numbers based on the current document's page count.
• The final selection is always deduplicated, clamped to valid page numbers, and sorted ascending.

Basic forms

• Numbers: 5 selects page 5.
• Ranges: 3-7 selects pages 3,4,5,6,7 (inclusive). If the start is greater than the end, it is swapped automatically (e.g., 7-3 → 3-7).
• Lists (OR): 1,3-5,10 selects pages 1,3,4,5,10.

You can still use the original CSV format. For example, 1,2,3,4,5 (first five pages) continues to work.

Logical operators

• OR (union): , or | or the word or
• AND (intersection): & or the word and
• NOT (complement within 1..max): !term or !(group) or the word not term / not (group)

Operator precedence (from highest to lowest):

1. ! (NOT)
2. & / and (AND)
3. , / | / or (OR)

Use parentheses (...) to override precedence where needed.

Keywords and progressions

• Keywords (case-insensitive):

  • even: all even pages (2, 4, 6, ...)
  • odd: all odd pages (1, 3, 5, ...)

• Arithmetic progressions: k n ± c, e.g. 2n, 3n+1, 4n-1

  • n starts at 0 (CSS-style: :nth-child), then increases by 1 (n = 0,1,2,...). Non-positive results are discarded.
  • k must be a positive integer (≥ 1). c can be any integer (including negative).
  • Examples:
    • 2n → 0,2,4,6,... → becomes 2,4,6,... after discarding non-positive
    • 2n-1 → -1,1,3,5,... → becomes 1,3,5,... (odd)
    • 3n+1 → 1,4,7,10,13,...

All selections are automatically limited to the current document's valid page numbers [1..maxPages].

Parentheses

• Group with parentheses to control evaluation order and combine NOT with groups.
• Examples:
  • 1-10 & (even, 15) → even pages 2,4,6,8,10 (15 is outside 1-10)
  • !(1-5, odd) → remove pages 1..5 and all odd pages; for a 10-page doc this yields 6,8,10
  • !(10-20 & !2n) → complement of odd pages from 11..19 inside 10..20
  • (2n | 3n+1) & 1-20 → union of even numbers and 3n+1 numbers, intersected with 1..20

Whitespace and case

• Whitespace is ignored: odd & 1 - 7 is valid.
• Keywords are case-insensitive: ODD, Odd, odd all work.

Universe, clamping, deduplication

• The selection universe is the document's pages [1..maxPages].
• Numbers outside the universe are discarded.
• Ranges are clamped to [1..maxPages] (e.g., 0-5 → 1-5, 9-999 in a 10-page doc → 9-10).
• Duplicates are removed; the final result is sorted ascending.

Examples

• 1-10 & 2n & !5-7 → 2,4,8,10
• odd → 1,3,5,7,9,...
• even → 2,4,6,8,10,...
• 2n-1 → 1,3,5,7,9,...
• 3n+1 → 4,7,10,13,16,... (up to max pages)
• 1-3, 8-9 → 1,2,3,8,9
• 1-2 | 9-10 or 5 → 1,2,5,9,10
• !(1-5) → remove the first five pages from the universe
• !(10-20 & !2n) → complement of odd pages between 10 and 20