pdf files

[paul]

When I try to print a pdf version of a Word document which has more
than one section, I obtain multiple pdf files, one corresponding to each
section. Is it possiblre to obtain a single file?

 

[Elliott Roper]

When I try to print a pdf version of a Word document which has more
than one section, I obtain multiple pdf files, one corresponding to each
section. Is it possiblre to obtain a single file?

Nope.

With full Acrobat you may be able to weld them together again. I have
looked for free alternatives, but with no success. The only reliable
method I found was to place the sections into an Indesign2 template,
but that is even more expensive.

Google the group with PDF and Section as search terms for a fuller
discussion.

 

[Elliott Roper]

That's a problem that's been around for years. One way to solve it is to
open the document in Windows Word, save it, and put it back on the Mac. For
some reason that fixes it until you perform an operation that breaks it
again, such as adding a section break.

I just posted less helpfully on the same subject. That is a neat hack.
Thanks.

 

[Henry]

Folks:

Thanks for this thread:

I just posted less helpfully on the same subject. That is a neat hack.
Thanks.

I tried two test cases:

#1 A ~6 year-old document, about 40 pages in four sections, that creates 4
different PDF files when printed to PDF from Word X (fully updated) on MacOS
10.2.6.

#2, A current document maintained in Word X, about 150 pages. This document
has a lot of sectioning: The final 50 pages are divided into about 35
sections, as that was the only way to get the footers to contain
page-specific information to meet requirements.

Sure enough, after opening and saving in Word XP (fully updated), #1 only
created one PDF file when I did print-to-PDF back on MacOS X. So the hack
really works to create a "valid" document, that is, a multi-section Word doc
that prints to one PDF file instead of multiple ones.

But the newer document printed to only one PDF.

Based on these two experiments, this problem does not appear to be directly
caused by lots of sectioning, or lots of different footer information in
lots of sections.

This experiment would seem to show that Word XP is capable of maintaining a
valid Word X document in this respect, and Word X is not always capable of
doing the same.

I'm incapable of commenting calmly/productively/without the use of intense
words regarding the implications of these results, so I'll just sign off.

Thanks,

Henry


(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

 

[Tim Murray]

My wording sounded like adding a section break will always break it, but
that's really not the case. Sorry about that. I have documents that seem to
have hair triggers and most anything will screw them up, and others that
always work just fine.

 

[Clive Huggan]

That's my experience too, Elliott.

I have Adobe Distiller, and it's easy enough to glue pages in at any point
-- but it's a nuisance if more than a few sections are involved. Looking on
the incurably bright side, it's an incentive to minimize the number of
sections! (but that's no consolation in Tim's case, with frequent landscape
pages among portrait).

--Clive Huggan

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Henry, since you say you got the second doc to work as it ought, your
experiment makes me wonder if there isn't something about documents or
section breaks originally created in Word 2001 or earlier versions that
breaks the pdf, although presumably people would have noticed anything that
regular.

DM

 

[Henry]

Dayo:

Thanks for your post on this thread:

Henry, since you say you got the second doc to work as it ought, your
experiment makes me wonder if there isn't something about documents or
section breaks originally created in Word 2001 or earlier versions that
breaks the pdf, although presumably people would have noticed anything that
regular.

The evidence is inconclusive. There are reports that this issue does occur
with documents created/maintained with versions later than 2001. We don't
know, though; maybe some of these documents were created in earlier
versions, and some kind of corruption lingers on.

However, there is also evidence that the Word file format hasn't changed for
a long time. for example, the fairly complex document (#2 in the
experiment) I maintain on Word X read and printed perfectly in Word 98 (is
that the right name?) on System 9.1. This and other evidence suggests to
me that there is no great difference in this respect.

(By the way, I'm willing to share either document I used in this experiment.
They aren't very interesting reading--one deals with emergency planning for
a school district and the other about GNU c startup code for a particular
microprocessor-- and are not secret.)

There is also this: At least some of us observe that Word is fragile in
more than one area. (My pet peeve right now is footer material corruption
occurring without my going near a footer.) Even the MVPs warn us to avoid
more than one or two Word features, though I can't claim these issues are
entirely parallel. In general: If it is fragile _here_, it might also be
fragile _there_.

Thanks,

Henry

(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

 

[Tim Murray]

The evidence is inconclusive. There are reports that this issue does occur

with documents created/maintained with versions later than 2001. We don't
know, though; maybe some of these documents were created in earlier
versions, and some kind of corruption lingers on.

The problem does indeed occur in new docs created in version X, but it's not
nearly as frequent.

 

[Pierre Igot]

Hi all,

I invited you to read this article I wrote for Applelust.com about
this very problem (single Word document saved as multiple PDF files in
Mac OS X):

http://www.applelust.com/oped/applepeel/archives/peel_62_030905.shtml

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi all,

I invited you to read this article I wrote for Applelust.com about
this very problem (single Word document saved as multiple PDF files in
Mac OS X):

http://www.applelust.com/oped/applepeel/archives/peel_62_030905.shtml

Well done Pierre. I'll see if I can reproduce your results next time I
get a multi-file PDF.