generating pdf for custom page size

[Tony Burton]

This is sort of a repeat of a post of a few days ago.

I have a document using a custom (small) page size. It behaves when I'm working on it in Page View
and looking at it in Print Preview. However, when I converted the doc to pdf, the pdf page was on
standard US Letter page size with each small document page being at the top and with extended side
and bottom margins.

Please tell me where I'm going wrong.

PS the Word doc also broke into 4 successive pdfs. I know there is a small application on the web
that glues pdfs, together but I've lost the link.

Thanks

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

This is sort of a repeat of a post of a few days ago.

Sorry, Tony! I missed your reply to my request for more info, trying out
Thunderbird for newsgroups and not liking it so much. However, I think
that reply identified your problem:

€ In Page Setup, the Paper Size is set at US Letter - no custom size selection there, but it is
defined in Settings/Page Attributes/Custom Paper Size

No, it should show the custom paper size in the Page Setup dialog. It
does on my machine, where this behaves, and that dialog does reflect
some complex interactions between the OS and Word (so that's the same as
Elliott's comment about setting it in the Mac, I think).

Try this: Go to Paper Size | Manage Custom Sizes (at the bottom of the
paper sizes) in File | Print Setup. Create a new size and then over in
the left of the dialog use the + icon to define and save your custom
size. Then you will be able to select it from the dropdown menu that
currently shows US Letter.

Okay, that's what I see in Tiger. You said you are using OS 10.3
(Panther, not the 10.4 Tiger)?

If you do not see Manage Custom Sizes on the Paper Size menu, then go
into TextEdit and create a custom paper size in the File | Page Setup
there, being sure to save the custom definition. Then you should be able
to choose that custom paper size in Word from the Paper Size definition,
though you may have to quit and relaunch Word first. I recall that being
necessary at some point in the past, and going through that process, and
I think it may be a Panther/Tiger difference.

I would ignore the Settings/Custom Paper Size dialog entirely, and even
uncheck the box in it that says use "custom paper size". On my machine,
when I set the Paper Size menu to custom-defined 6x6, it works fine, but
has no impact on the Settings/Custom Paper Size dialog, so I think that
dialog is safe to ignore.

Let us know if and where the process I recommended breaks down.

Daiya

PS. My, this all seems much complicated than it needs to be. Time to
file a bug about Word happily lying to the users.

PPS. I'm quite happy with Combine PDFs to combine pdf files.

 

[Tony Burton]

Thanks for the detailed response, Daiya. Yes, 10.3

Okay, that's what I see in Tiger. You said you are using OS 10.3
(Panther, not the 10.4 Tiger)?

If you do not see Manage Custom Sizes on the Paper Size menu, then go
into TextEdit and create a custom paper size in the File | Page Setup
there, being sure to save the custom definition. Then you should be able
to choose that custom paper size in Word from the Paper Size definition,
though you may have to quit and relaunch Word first. I recall that being
necessary at some point in the past, and going through that process, and
I think it may be a Panther/Tiger difference.

Did that in TextEdit, and the custom size DID show up in Word Page Settings - amazing!
BUT, big but - this depends on what chapter (section) of the document I select for saving to pdf.

Even when the new custom page size is selected in the print window, for some sections the little
print preview still shows the page top-center on a US Letter page, and the pdf looks the same, while
"good" sections behave properly.

If I make a page range selection that crosses such a section, the "save to pdf" generates two pdfs -
one custom page size and the other on US Letter!

Point of order here: the bounding box of the Footer goes right down to the bottom edge of the page
of EVERY section. I can't figure out how to drag it up towards the bottom of the page number. It
isn't a problem except that while a pdf is being created I get a message (on just some of the
sections) that the footer of section xx is set outside the printable area of the page. This seems to
be where the pdf breaks into two.

On lurking in this newsgroup, I now know that section breaks are quite problematic, but the manual
I'm working on needs them for chapter info in the header.

Ancilliary, maybe important points, and general weirdness:

- After much general random strangeness, and an onset of many Classic/PageMaker crashes, etc. I did
a clean install of the OS. Since then, communication with the printer (driver was reinstalled also)
is marginal - The Lexmark 322 does not even show up in Chooser in Classic. In OS10 it will print
Word, and *might* print the first page of a pdf while giving print-error messages then stopping.

This is the first time since my Mac Plus days that hassles are piling up.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Tony--

Did that in TextEdit, and the custom size DID show up in Word Page Settings - amazing!

Okay good! First step accomplished.

(Like I said, File | Page Setup reflects an interaction between Word,
the OS, and the printer driver--TextEdit (or Pages, both written by
Apple) can talk to the OS and tell it to save a custom paper size, which
Word could not do until Tiger. It does seem very counter-intuitive,
though.)

BUT, big but - this depends on what chapter (section) of the document I select for saving to pdf.

Even when the new custom page size is selected in the print window, for some sections the little
print preview still shows the page top-center on a US Letter page, and the pdf looks the same, while
"good" sections behave properly.

Okay, try this--put the cursor in section 1, set the custom paper size.
Put the cursor in section 2, set the custom paper size. Repeat for all
sections (well, do a few, then test to see if it's working). Even if the
custom size comes up preselected, reset it. File | Page Setup seems to
automatically default to "this section only", which is good when you
want only one page to be landscape, but in your case aggravating, and
even the Tiger version has no setting to change what it applies to.

If I make a page range selection that crosses such a section, the "save to pdf" generates two pdfs -
one custom page size and the other on US Letter!

To be expected. Sometimes a document is sent to the printer as multiple
print jobs, each print job gets it own PDF. Changing paper size
certainly requires a different print job. If we can sort out the paper
size issue, it will be easy enough to combine the PDFs at the end, if
still necessary.

Point of order here: the bounding box of the Footer goes right down to the bottom edge of the page
of EVERY section. I can't figure out how to drag it up towards the bottom of the page number. It
isn't a problem except that while a pdf is being created I get a message (on just some of the
sections) that the footer of section xx is set outside the printable area of the page. This seems to
be where the pdf breaks into two.

That also seems to be the case on all my documents here. Not sure what
to do about that one.

On lurking in this newsgroup, I now know that section breaks are quite problematic, but the manual
I'm working on needs them for chapter info in the header.

Actually, maybe not. What chapter information? For instance, if all you
want to do is show the chapter title in the header, you can use a
StyleRef field in the header set to pick up the nearest text formatted
in ChapterTitle style. The text of the StyleRef will change without
section breaks. However, to get no header at all on the first page of
each chapter, or to restart footnote numbering, section breaks are
required (though I'm investigating the blank first page header issue,
there might be a workaround for that one).

Ancilliary, maybe important points, and general weirdness:

- After much general random strangeness, and an onset of many Classic/PageMaker crashes, etc. I did
a clean install of the OS. Since then, communication with the printer (driver was reinstalled also)
is marginal - The Lexmark 322 does not even show up in Chooser in Classic. In OS10 it will print
Word, and *might* print the first page of a pdf while giving print-error messages then stopping.

Since you are printing to PDF anyhow, it doesn't really matter which
printer driver you use. In Page Setup, you can use Format for Any
Printer--you might even install the printer driver for some other
printer and use that. And you might try reinstalling the Lexmark
driver, first checking the Lexmark website for an updated version. I'm
not surprised it doesn't like Classic, but it ought to behave in OS X.

This is the first time since my Mac Plus days that hassles are piling up.

hope they can be resolved!

Daiya

 

[Tony Burton]

Hi Tony--


Okay good! First step accomplished.

snip, snip

Thanks for the response again. I spent all afternoon trying various things on the document and just
got frustrated. Finally, I used a tip in "Bend Word to your Will" and copied the entire manual, less
last paragraph marker, into a new document, made sure margins were doc-wide consistent, and cleaned
up a few layout oddities. The new file is behaving,and it even broke into somewhat fewer pdfs this
time, and the pdfs were all custom page size! Also during the pdf production I stopped getting the
error messages about the footer exceeding the print bounds of the page.

There must have been a gremlin in the para marker. Progress.

More on the oddity front: During the day I was trying to replace an "odd page section break" with an
"even page section break" and Word would not comply - it insisted on keeping the odd page. I tried
lots of combinations of deletions and reinsertions and it finally worked, but I don't recall now
exactly what it was that I did

Cheers

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

There must have been a gremlin in the para marker. Progress.

More on the oddity front: During the day I was trying to replace an "odd page section break" with an
"even page section break" and Word would not comply - it insisted on keeping the odd page. I tried
lots of combinations of deletions and reinsertions and it finally worked, but I don't recall now
exactly what it was that I did

Ah, the gremlins.... Okay, sounds like you are totally set now? Maybe
you just need to google for Combine PDF or PDFLab to stitch the files
together, but other than that, the document is totally functional for
what you need to do, right?

Glad you sorted it.

Daiya