To download magazine from issuu.com when the download option has been disabled. in practice the script doesn't actually download the pdf, but rather download the images of the pages of the flash object and then combines those into a pdf

issuu_downloader.rb

require 'mechanize'
require 'prawn'
=begin
running from terminal to download any pdf from issuu.com, given
- magazine name
- page count
- document-id
=end

prompt = "> "

puts "What is the name of the magazine you'd like to download from issuu.com? ps: this will be the name of your pdf file\n"
print prompt
magazine_name = gets.chomp


puts "How many pages does it have?\n ie 104\n"
print prompt
page_number = gets.chomp

puts "document Id? \n to get the 'document-id' inspect page in chrome,\n search for document-id and paste here,\n ie 140601160255-3a4c0f75ec731801ef369f5000f03104\n"
print prompt
document_id = gets.chomp

for i in 1..page_number.to_i
  print "downloading\tpage n #{i}\n"
  agent = Mechanize.new
  link = "http://image.issuu.com/#{document_id.to_s}/jpg/page_#{i.to_s}.jpg"
  agent.get(link).save "page_#{i.to_s}.jpg"
  print "downloaded\tpage n #{i}\n"
end

print "images from 1 to #{page_number.to_s} downloaded as jpg\n"

########to combine all images into a pdf

Prawn::Document.generate("#{magazine_name}.pdf", :page_layout => :portrait) do |pdf|

  for i in 1..page_number.to_i
      pdf.image "page_#{i.to_s}.jpg", :at => [0,750], :width => 530
      pdf.start_new_page
  end#end of loop
end

print "images from 1 to #{page_number.to_s} combined into pdf \n"

########to delete all images, once pdf as been created, to clean up a bit
for i in 1..page_number.to_i
  File.delete("page_#{i.to_s}.jpg")
end#end of prawn

print "images from 1 to #{page_number.to_s} deleted \n"
# print "your pdf #{magazine_name}.pdf is in: \n #{Dir.pwd}"