PDF file manipulation

Hi Peoples,

My mother in law asked me to download and print some knitting patterns from the Better Homes and Garden website.

I thought fine, no problems. I went to the site, downloaded both sets of patterns and then brought them up in Adobe's acrobat (as they were pdf files). Each file was one page.

Each file had a document size of 33.86 x 22.44 inches - that is you needed a printer that could print to that size page to print it to scale.

Does anyone know of a tool that will take a single page pdf file of some arbitrary size and create multiple pages from it (even with overlap) so it can be printed on a 1:1 scale.

I am hopeing I don't have to do cut and paste using screen dumping utilities, but if I have to I will.

Regards
Burn

Why don't you take the pdf to a Snap or similar printer and print the plans on that size? I'll only cost you a couple of bucks and the end result will be much better.

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Originally Posted by Grunt

Why don't you take the pdf to a Snap or similar printer and print the plans on that size? I'll only cost you a couple of bucks and the end result will be much better.

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Thanks Grunt, a good idea.

I still believe that the magazine in question could be a little nicer to it's readers.

Burn

The whole idea of PDF files is to rigidly control the presentation of information. That is, to stop you from stuffing around with the document unless you have the full Adobe Acrobat and the necessary document passwords.

Ed T

Ed,

Are you saying that I could take a pdf file as I described and then if I had a full version of acrobat I could do cut and paste to generate multiple pages?

As an aside, I just spoke with the editor of the magazine and she said they would investigate this matter. She implied that it was not expected that people have a printer of that capacity (or have to read the print with a magnifying glass even if printed on a A3 printer).

Burn

I use an inexpensive bit of gear http://www.smileonmymac.com/PDFpen/index.html

Surely there'd be similar for that OTHER platform??

P
:cool:

Hi Burn,

I'm downloading the 24 mb file as I type and noticed on the bhg webpage, that they mentioned printing the file as TILE i.e. if your printer has this ability, you'd have an option to Tile print the file.

Not exactly helpful and probably only means something to a few.

You could also copy sections of the pdf and paste it into eg Microsoft Word or whatever Word Processing Application you may use.

Cheers
RufflyRustic

burn,

Yes, IF the file and it's components are not further protected with passwords. But it would be normal to password protect files which the author values.

Ed T

burn, checkout this link for pdf manipulation http://www.pdf995.com/

Not sure if it helps, but maybe worth a look.


Cheers.............Sean, acrobat & bs artist

PDF Files are essentially scaled down EPS (encapsulated postscript) files.

Postscript is a type of mathematics used by printers to establish what marks go where when imaging.

Predominately, most home computer users have "Quickdraw" inkjet printers - basically a simplified printing method which is WYSISYG - what you see on screen is what gets printed on the page, scaled to fit.

Even if you were to open the Acrobat file in a vector based drawing program like Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand or even Corel draw you still would not be able to "tile" it over multiple pages because your printer could simply not handle the mathematics.

If you really wanted to avoid any cost you could always give the file to someone who has a postscript laser printer for output to multiple tiled pages.

There are some software RIP's (raster image processors) available to emulate postscript on quickdraw printers - but they could cost more than the $2.50 for a plan printing shop to run it out at 100% for you - hell pay another couple of bucks and they can laminate it

anyway that's my two bobs worth

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Originally Posted by burn

Each file had a document size of 33.86 x 22.44 inches - that is you needed a printer that could print to that size page to print it to scale.

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Burn in adobe use the tool bar to Bring the file size up to 100 %
Click on snapshot tool ( little picture of a camera)
You get a little curser use this like a crop tool that is start in the top left hand corner hold the left mouse button down move across and down
You will create a box when you release the left button the area in the box is transfered to your clipboard

On the windows tool bar click on the printer to print this bit full size
In other words you can cut the page up yourself without tile function
Takes a bit longer and you may get some overlap , or use to many pages , even miss a line as it depends how accurate you are with the curser but I think you will get the hang of it ok cause it ain't rocket science.
This is of course If you want to do it at home As others have suggested you can take the file and get someone else to print it for you..



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