Re: "Save as pdf" re-sizes my Word document.
- From: Elliott Roper <nospam@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 20:22:01 +0100
In article <lilu.1sdjja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, lilu
<lilu.1sdjja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<snip>
>
> *Thanks for your heroic effort!
Hero? Moi? Nope. I'm interested in that kind of problem. I find that
writing down a reply helps think about it.
<snip>
> *The reason why I set the paper to Tabloid size (17" x 11," as
> landscape orientation) is because I am trying to create a brochure that
> is sized 15.58 inches wide by 8.25 inches long, which is A4 size + one
> additional panel. (The brochure folds in half and then folds in half
> again). I thought it would be easier to use a Tabloid-sized page
> setting than creating a "Custom size." I tried the latter as well, and
> had the same problem, with the .pdf reducing on me.
Ah, that explains a bit of my confusion.
> *The "115%" is NOT the on-screen magnification setting. You're talking
> about the "Zoom" setting under View. I'm talking about the "Scaling"
> setting in the Page Setup dialogue box. The scaling setting DOES effect
> the printed size, not how the document looks onscreen.
Ah. I would avoid scaling at almost any cost. If you are concerned
about type looking good, you would want to keep it at 100%. Every font
family has slight variations at each size to keep the type looking good
at that size. For instance you would not want to shrink Garamond
semi-display down to 6 pt. You would do better with Garamond caption.
>
> *I thought the scaling would be part of the Page Setup specs that would
> get frozen into my .pdf, but the scaling isn't getting frozen in.
> Neither is my Page Size. I don't understand which settings, exactly,
> get frozen into the .pdf apart from the page breaks that you mention
> below. I think you're saying that the look of the Mac fonts don't even
> get frozen in because of the varying look of "resident fonts" on other
> people's printers. Do I understand you right?
I think you have got it. It is not just Mac fonts, but Word will make
the line and page breaks with the current computer's fonts and printer.
<snip>
> You wrote: "PDF freezes the page breaks. When printing a PDF the user
> may optionally choose to optically enlarge or shrink the type to fill a
> larger or smaller paper size when using some PDF reader software. They
> will not have any chance to re-flow the text onto different pages.
>
> *At the moment, I can't get too excited about .pdfs maintaining
> (freezing) my page breaks because my brochure is only one page long!
> (Separate .pdf files for front and back.) For future jobs, this might
> make me very happy! Are you saying with your last two sentences above
> that on a PC, ANYTHING can change about the document EXCEPT for my page
> breaks? What do you think I can expect to change on the PC at the
> printing company?
In that situation, I'd go for custom paper and three columns. Set your
custom paper for 15.58 * 8.25 in Word, then set your section to have
three columns, one for each panel when it is folded. When you print to
PDF, make sure you have the same custom paper size.
>
> *I think you're saying below that the look of the fonts will change,
> too. I thought those stayed frozen in a .pdf, as if the type were
> graphics, rather than text. That's why the printing company can print
> my text from my .pdf and keep their look, even when they don't have the
> fonts I need at all! (My fonts they don't have, like Stone Sans, are not
> "substituted." For this particular design purpose, I can't simply use
> TNR, Helvetica and Arial, unfortunately.)
Good choice! PDF will embed the font in the file and your printer
should be happy. Sadly, TNR Helvetica and Arial have become cliches for
business boring, mostly because of Word's ubiquity. You just can't win.
Stone Sans is lovely isn't it? I particularly like the upper case
letters. I have been meaning to get it for ages. I use Optima when I
want the same clean yet chiselled effect.
<snip>
> You wrote: "If your original PDF were 'printed' with tabloid, and you
> try to print the PDF on A4, then Preview will ask if you want to scale
> or crop. If you choose scale, then your type will be roughly 71% of the
> original height (A3 is square root of 2 times A4, in other words the
> area is double - much the same as "letter" to "tabloid" I guess)"
>
> *Elliott, even if I were to do a preview of a simple A4 letter saved as
> a .pdf, the preview version that pops up in the "Untitled" window is
> STILL a reduction. This "preview of a .pdf reduction" weirdness has
> nothing to do with this tabloid issue (i.e., trying to squeeze a
> tabloid-size document onto an A4 piece of paper).
I'm pretty sure it is. Keep the paper size the same.
>
> *My version of Preview (2.0.1) isn't that polite. It's not asking me
> whether I want to crop or scale to fit. It just shrinks the thing to
> fit, regardless of what I want. If it gave me a choice in the matter,
> then I wouldn't be so unhappy! Are you working off a different version
> of Preview? I'm still on Jaguar....
Tiger is definitely worth the money. For Preview alone.
>
> *When I followed your advice and chose my home printer instead of "Any
> Printer" in the Page Setup, then I was able to get a .pdf to save in
> the original Tabloid size even though I can't print it at home. That
> was a breakthrough in and of itself. Then, I changed the setting to A4
> in the .pdf to print it at home, so I could at least proof my brochure
> (at a reduced size) before sending it off to the printer (which I have
> yet to do!)
>
> > Thanks a million. I'm amazed that this jelly business about Word
> isn't
> > more widely known (or at least by me, after using Word for almost 20
> > years).
>
> You wrote: "Indeed. When most people are using the same size paper, and
> the same versions of fonts, and the same printers, it never shows up. If
> you posted hard copy snail mail it never showed up either.
>
> "Now that there are more A4 printers in use in North America, and
> printer and paper technology is rapidly moving to deal with photo
> printing, and everyone does e-mail, most of us won't be able to go
> another 20 years without getting bitten by it.
>
> *Nice to know there are more A4 printers in use in North America (A4 is
> a very nice size), but I'm not too concerned with those folks at the
> moment! As I mentioned, I'm writing you from Malaysia, where there are
> no 8 1/2" x 11" printers. Hah! (Not to pose as a Malaysian, though; I
> am a North American over here, waiting for the winds of change to blow
> over that continent, not that you asked!)
I was preaching. Ignore it. Try the tabloid three column suggestion for
your brochure. What you are trying to do is better suited to a page
layout program such as InDesign, so you have to trick Word into doing
the right thing.
<snip>
>
> You continue: "Consider your headers and footers in setting page
> margins. If your page numbers disappear when printed, you have tried to
> print them in the part of the paper your printer can't reach."
>
> *Yes, that always happens with my longer documents! (Not this
> brochure.) I can't control how far from the edge of the paper the page
> number appears in the Header/Footer dialogue box (Insert->Page
> Numbers->Format). Where can you adjust this distance?
Page margins and insert header and footer, fiddling with their sizes
and then experimenting with the printer. I always find it a nightmare.
I keep trying things till it works. One day I'll sort it out in my
feeble brain and write a brilliant post.
>
> You wrote: "Use common fonts. Arial and Times New Roman, (from the
> Office distribution) will cause less 'cross platform' trouble with
> differing line breaks and page breaks than Helvetica and Times as
> delivered with your Mac. Most people cannot tell the difference between
> Arial and Helvetica anyway. Both of them are boring and innocuous.
>
> *Indeed, which is why I can't use them for this brochure! BTW, do you
> happen to know what the difference is between "Times" on the Mac and
> "Times New Roman"?
I have it in my bag of predjudices that TNR is a bit more condensed
than Times (narrower letters on average). You have to remember that
Times is designed to look good in large numbers of very narrow columns
in very small fonts on very large pages, you know, like the Times
newspaper in London. It had to be readable even when the type was set
by hand or on poorly maintained hot metal linecasting machines. It is
not the best looking font for wider measures and today's printing
technology. TNR, as supplied by Microsoft in Word 2004 has an enormous
number of esoteric glyphs with Unicode. I'd use it in preference to Mac
Times for that reason alone, once I upgrade to Word 2004. To tell Arial
from Helvetica, I look for lower case a's.
> You continue: "Be aware that even when they have the same name, fonts
> on different machines may be different. Also be aware that some (most)
> printers have Arial, TNR, Times and Helvetica as resident fonts. There
> is no guarantee they are the same as your Mac's. If you get a chance,
> over-ride the resident fonts when printing. It used to be slightly
> slower to send the fonts to the printer, but with 100 Mbit ethernet,
> you won't notice any difference."
>
> *You've lost me here. How do I override the "resident fonts" when
> printing? Do you mean printing on my own printer? Or when sending a
> pdf file to a printing company, I should somehow "send over" my own
> fonts to them? So, the printing company (or whomever my intended
> recipient is) would have to somehow install MY fonts on their computer
> before printing? Can you point me towards some directions on how to do
> that?
Depends on your own printer driver. If you send PDF, at least from the
Preview in Panther and Tiger, I have forgotten about Jaguar; the fonts
on your Mac will be embedded in the PDF. Therefore the font synonym
problem only appears in Word .docs.
When I have to send stuff off to be professionally printed, I re-do the
Word text in InDesign, with the columns laid out *exactly* how I want
it to look. Then I look behind me in case the typeface police are
watching, and quickly slide all the fonts I used into the package for
the printer. (I figure that I am the 1000th person to send him a copy
of Garamond Pro, so Adobe can't get too upset)
Word is not a proper typography product. It is good enough for letters
and memos, but it's pretty second rate at laying out type properly.
>
> Thanks again, Elliott. You're very kind.
It's a pleasure, plus remember I type this stuff out to get it straight
in my own mind, so there is a selfish motive.
--
To de-mung my e-mail address:- fsnospam$elliott$$
PGP Fingerprint: 1A96 3CF7 637F 896B C810 E199 7E5C A9E4 8E59 E248
.
- References:
- Re: "Save as pdf" re-sizes my Word document.
- From: lilu
- Re: "Save as pdf" re-sizes my Word document.
- Prev by Date: Graphics are moving when printed and fuzzy.
- Next by Date: WORD TEMPLATE
- Previous by thread: Re: "Save as pdf" re-sizes my Word document.
- Next by thread: How do you compress imbedded images?
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
