Hi

I am printing from word to acrobat distiller so as to provide pdf documents
for distribution - however the pdf version have an 88% reduction in the
print area. This does not effect the document layout in word it just seems
to scale each page by this arbitrary amount.

The Distiller print settings have been selected to be 210mm x 297mm and
scaling to 100%.

My question is how to set the distiller options so that the pdf output from
word is the same as the direct print in terms of print area.

Thanks
Steve

After messing about some more I have found that the :

      shrink oversize pages to paper size

checkbox in the acrobat print dialogue seems to be the cause of the problem.

I have tried various paper sizes and get the following behaviour which I
cannot fathom:

Document and printer properties:
pdf document page size: 209.9mm x 297.04mm
printer paper size: 210 x 297 mm

with shrink selected in acrobat print dialogue:
   preview zoom: 99.9%
   actual print area - 88% of normal

with shrink unselected in acrobat print dialogue:
   preview zoom: 100%
   actual print area - 100% of normal

Why the discrepancy. This behaviour would seem to be incorrect but is
consistent with other document page sizes.

Regards
Steve



"Steve Mowbray" <steve_mowbray@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xr4zb.17646$j95.147804411@news-text.cableinet.net...
> Hi
>
> I am printing from word to acrobat distiller so as to provide pdf
documents
> for distribution - however the pdf version have an 88% reduction in the
> print area. This does not effect the document layout in word it just seems
> to scale each page by this arbitrary amount.
>
> The Distiller print settings have been selected to be 210mm x 297mm and
> scaling to 100%.
>
> My question is how to set the distiller options so that the pdf output
from
> word is the same as the direct print in terms of print area.
>
> Thanks
> Steve
>
>

"Steve Mowbray" <steve_mowbray@hotmail.com> wrote:

>After messing about some more I have found that the :
>
>      shrink oversize pages to paper size
>
>checkbox in the acrobat print dialogue seems to be the cause of the problem.

This is normal. This option shrinks the entire PDF page to fit the
imagable area of the printer. Since almost all printers have an
unprintable margin, this almost always means that printing (for
instance) a4 PDF on a4 paper will shrink.
----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston  quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
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"Aandi Inston" <quite@dial.pipex.con> wrote in message
news:3fcce2a9.1764770986@reading.news.pipex.net...
> "Steve Mowbray" <steve_mowbray@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >After messing about some more I have found that the :
> >
> >      shrink oversize pages to paper size
> >
> >checkbox in the acrobat print dialogue seems to be the cause of the
problem.
>
> This is normal. This option shrinks the entire PDF page to fit the
> imagable area of the printer. Since almost all printers have an
> unprintable margin, this almost always means that printing (for
> instance) a4 PDF on a4 paper will shrink.

I suppose it makes some sort of sense - however it is confusing as it doesnt
seem to mention printable area / printer margins anywhere in the print
dialogue and the difference in preview zoom was stated as 0.1% (i.e. 99.9%
for shrink and 100% for non-shrink) so it was not obvious in any way that
there will be a different output area size (measured at 88% which would
roughly tie in with the printer margins).

What I need now is a consistent word print to acrobat setting that will
produce a correct print size for obvious acrobat print dialogue settings.

> ----------------------------------------
> Aandi Inston  quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
> Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.
>

"Steve Mowbray" <steve_mowbray@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>What I need now is a consistent word print to acrobat setting that will
>produce a correct print size for obvious acrobat print dialogue settings.

I don't see any way you can influence the PDF printing from the way
you create the PDF.
----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston  quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.

"Aandi Inston" <quite@dial.pipex.con> wrote in message
news:3fcd0a27.1774880583@reading.news.pipex.net...
> "Steve Mowbray" <steve_mowbray@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >What I need now is a consistent word print to acrobat setting that will
> >produce a correct print size for obvious acrobat print dialogue settings.
>
> I don't see any way you can influence the PDF printing from the way
> you create the PDF.

Neither can I at the moment - however the acrobat print dialog
(non-intuitive) behaviour is confusing the users of these pdf documents (and
me) with this minor but annoying scale factor.

I had thought that the Word page setup required for pdf print would be zero
margins then the default "shrink" option (set) would come out correct for
the users local printer - however this will cause the reverse problem of
overprint areas if the "shrink" option is not the default setting.

The main problem is that casual users of Acrobat would not be expected to
discern the automatic printer margin handling that is implicit in the print
options. I think my best bet is to produce a small but specific printing
guide.


> ----------------------------------------
> Aandi Inston  quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
> Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.
>

"Steve Mowbray" <steve_mowbray@hotmail.com> wrote:

>The main problem is that casual users of Acrobat would not be expected to
>discern the automatic printer margin handling that is implicit in the print
>options. I think my best bet is to produce a small but specific printing
>guide.

I think you are absolutely right.

Some thoughts:

1. For the end user it doesn't have to be anything like as complex as
you made it: just tell them that "shrink to fit" etc. will mean the
page doesn't print at its original size, and the option should be off.

2. The option is renamed and rearranged in each version of Acrobat. Be
sure to research and cover each version you intend to support.
----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston  quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.