PLEASE HELP WITH MARGINS--Daiya's "Booklets in MacWord" page withimposition software

[Michelle]

I'm trying to help a friend make a booklet in Microsoft Office 2004. I've
been following Daiya's help page
http://daiya.mvps.org/booklets.htm#BookletPrograms
and am using the CocoaBooklet freeware (version 2.0.4). I followed her
advice and used a custom paper size (5.5 x 8.5) so that it wouldn't be
shrunk by CocoaBooklet when doing the imposition. This is supposed to help
reduce the large top and bottom margins created because of the proportion
difference.

I am still getting huge top and bottom margins and even quite large left,
right, and middle (in the fold) margins. I have even set my CocoaBooklet
margins to 0 and my Word margins to .35 and I'm still getting the huge
margins. It IS shrinking the font and text.

Any idea what I could be doing wrong? Please help me, I've tried EVERYTHING
that I can think of.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Michelle,

It's entirely possible that you are doing nothing wrong, but that Cocoa
Booklet has changed since I wrote that article on a few versions back
(maybe 1.5 years ago?)

If you are in a hurry, just run CocoaBooklet on a regular 8.5x11 page,
and let it shrink the text and get slightly big margins. MAKE A COPY and
change the margins on that.

If you have time, I should have a chance to update my CocoaBooklet,
probably later today, play around with it, and see what can be done. Or
someone else may have a key suggestion in the meantime.

Daiya

 

[Michelle]

Actually, my first version was on an 8.5 x 11 page (before I saw your
suggestion of 5.5) and I'm not seeing any difference in the margins.
It looks almost identical.

 

[Michelle]

I think that I've discovered that the problem doesn't even seem to lie in
the imposition software. When I "save as PDF" from Word and then view that,
the margins are huge. So it's actually in the save as PDF that it changes.
In Word, the page is 5.5 x 8, but when I view document properties in the
PDF (through Adobe Reader), it says that the document is 8.5 x 11. So it's
taking my smaller page and placing it on a larger PDF page, thus when the
imposition software does its job, the margins are already too large.

Does this make sense? Is there a way around this? How do I get the PDF
saving to use the original page size?

 

[Michelle]

I've been digging a little further and have discovered a couple of other
peculiar things. Within Word, if I click the "print preview" button in the
toolbar, the document previews as it should--margins look exactly as they
should. When I go to the print window and see the document in the "quick
preview" window with the print window, the margins are too big. Something
is happening once we go from the document to the print window.

Any ideas?

 

[Phillip Jones]

When viewing from PDF before printing look for a setting Page scaling.

Set to none.

will me on the print dialog menu.

I've been digging a little further and have discovered a couple of other
peculiar things. Within Word, if I click the "print preview" button in the
toolbar, the document previews as it should--margins look exactly as they
should. When I go to the print window and see the document in the "quick
preview" window with the print window, the margins are too big. Something
is happening once we go from the document to the print window.

Any ideas?

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[Michelle]

I almost have it fixed (although in a round-about way). My only problem now
is that when I save as PDF, it processes the pages and when it gets to
section 4 of the document, it says that a footer is outside of the printable
area. The footer of this section and all associated margins are EXACTLY the
same as for the previous 3 sections, so I'm not sure why it's finding an
error there.

Regardless, I tell it to continue in saving as PDF--however, for whatever
reason, possibly due to the previous footer issue, I end up with 2 PDF
documents. The first one has almost the entire document--p. 1-38. The 2nd
PDF is given the same file name with a 2 on the end--this contains only the
last page of the document--p. 39.

Why is Word splitting it into 2 PDF files when it gets to the page that
contains the footer in question? (even though it says the footer is outside
the printable page, I'm POSITIVE that it's the same as the rest of the
document.)

 

[Roger Morris]

Using Mac OS 10.4.8, MSOffice 11.3.4 and CocoaBooklet 2.0.4.

I regularly use CocoaBooklet version to produce an A5 booklet
(the European equivalent of 5.5 x 8.5) printed on A4 (~ 8.5 x 11) paper
and find it consistent and reliable.

This is how my setup works:

CocoaBooklet is set as a PDF Service (see "create a PDF service" under
the CocoaBooklet menu) to put a new menu item in the Print > PDF menu.

Each section of the Word document must have its Page Size set to A5
(5.5 x 8.5).

In Word I don't save as PDF but do select the CocoaBooklet item under
that same Print > PDF menu.

I have CocoaBooklet produce separate PDFs for each side of the printed
sheets as I don't have a printer with double sided capability.

The only difficulty arises when there are multiple (Word) sections with
slightly different margin or page characteristics. CocoaBooklet then
produces
multiple PDFs but without using a new name, so tries to overwrite those
already produced. I think saving to a folder set up with an action to
rename
things deposited in it would be the way forward here but most of my docs
don't cause the problem so I haven't tried.

Roger



[snip]

Roger

 

[Elliott Roper]

I almost have it fixed (although in a round-about way). My only problem now
is that when I save as PDF, it processes the pages and when it gets to
section 4 of the document, it says that a footer is outside of the printable
area. The footer of this section and all associated margins are EXACTLY the
same as for the previous 3 sections, so I'm not sure why it's finding an
error there.

Regardless, I tell it to continue in saving as PDF--however, for whatever
reason, possibly due to the previous footer issue, I end up with 2 PDF
documents. The first one has almost the entire document--p. 1-38. The 2nd
PDF is given the same file name with a 2 on the end--this contains only the
last page of the document--p. 39.

Why is Word splitting it into 2 PDF files when it gets to the page that
contains the footer in question? (even though it says the footer is outside
the printable page, I'm POSITIVE that it's the same as the rest of the
document.)

This is a famous misfeature. Any section break that changes the
margins, or thinks it has, or gets into a sulk for some other reason,
causes the print job to split into two. It is most obvious with print
to PDF and printing double sided in two passes on a non-duplex printer.

Either track down what is different, or give up and glue Humpty Dumpty
back together again with one of the the many PDF stitchers out there. I
use PDFLab.

 

[Michelle]

I solved all my problems with a couple of different fixes for the different
problems.

As far as splitting the PDF into multiple sections based on sections, here's
what I did. Even though I had already checked each section and verified
that the settings were the same, Word kept contradicting me. After various
attempts, I think that what finally worked was simply selecting all
(apple-a), going back into format document, reset the margins, header/footer
settings, and making sure that I had "whole document" selected instead of
"this section". I could have sworn that I had tried this a couple of times
before and it didn't work, but finally it did--or else I did something else
inadvertently that did the trick. Regardless, I finally got the document to
transfer to PDF as ONE file.

I also figured out what was happening with the original document margins.
In a previous e-mail, I had noted that:
Here's what was happening--
When I first set up my document, I went to "Page Setup>settings>custom paper
size and had set it up for 5.5 x 8.5. However, later when I went to the
print dialogue, it wasn't reflecting this in "page setup>paper size". So,
my document was formatted for the custom paper size, but it wasn't actually
setting itself to PRINT on that size paper. At first, the closest I could
come to fixing this was making sure that it was selected in the page
setup>settings>custom paper size, and then choosing A5 in the Page
Setup>Paper size menu--A5 being the closest option I could find for the
dimensions that I needed.

Then I remember that in Daiya's original article, she said you have to go
into Text Edit to create a custom paper size before it will be reflected in
Word's option menu. I had forgotten about that tip, because Word WAS
letting me set the page size in Page Setup>settings>custom paper size, just
not in Page Setup>Paper size. This still doesn't make complete sense to
me--if the first submenu will let me set a size, why isn't it reflected in
the 2nd submenu.

Anyway, I'm just happy that the problem is solved. It ended up being an
easy solution, it just took a lot of digging to find out exactly where the
problem was. It appeared fine on my Page Layout view, it looked fine in
"print preview" through the toolbar or the Menu list. It was ONLY when I
finally pulled up the Print dialogue that things changed. This was why it
took me a while to narrow down the problem.

Thank you everyone for your patience as I worked to solve the problem. And
thank those of you who have added your input and verification of my issues.
This will help clarify things in future projects and I'll know what kinds of
troubleshooting routes to take to circumvent certain problems.

What a great resource this newsgroup is!

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Michelle,

I'm sorry I never managed to try this out and be helpful. But your
research will enrich the results of others, I am sure, and I will try to
remember to update the article to warn people away from Page Setup |
Settings | Custom Paper Size (which I have never seen work) and toward
Page Setup |Paper Size | Manage Custom Sizes (pre-Tiger, one needed Text
Edit to access this Manage Custom Sizes dialog). Actually, perhaps I'll
just write a new article, because that misleading setting has caused
problems before, and it's hard to remember to think of that as a problem.

The random margin message no one really understands--I think you found
the best/only solution for that one.

Thanks so much for sharing your results.

Daiya

 

[Michelle]

One other issue has arisen once again--I did get it to send as one file, now
it's back to 2. I'm trying to figure out the formulas for setting up
document margins and footer margins so that the print dialogue won't say
that it's outside the printable area. I got it to work once, but now the
same settings don't seem to be working once again.

I know that my printer always adjusts the bottom margin to .56--that's the
smallest that it will allow that section due to my printer unless I ignore
it's offer to fix. So here's how I have the various margin
settings--however, its now sending p. 1-38 as one file (section 1) and p.
38-40 as a second file (sections 2-4). What do I need to do so that the
document margins and footer margins work together.

Top=.5
Bottom=.6
Left=.5
Right=.5
Header=0
Footer=.56

I have no header in the document--just a footer. This is what's giving me
the problem. I thought that giving the footer the same margin as my printer
defaults to and then setting the document margin outside of that would work.
What's the problem with these settings?

 

[Michelle]

I'm at a loss. Now it's working correctly again. It'll send as one file
once, then turn around send as two files the next (I'm pretty sure that no
changes have been made between them, but as much minor editing as I've done
with this document over the last few weeks, I'm swearing to nothing!

A little feedback on the document/footer margins would still be helpful
though! Every time I go to do this in documents, I can never remember if
the footer/header margins have to be smaller than the document margins are
larger. I'm sure it's smaller, but I draw a blank every time and have to
rethink the logic.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Michelle,

To get around the "creates two PDFs" problem, just google for PDFLab or
Combine PDFs to stitch the two back together after creation, then send
the combined file to CocoaBooklet. Not worth hassling with.

I would say that a Header Margin of Zero might be causing fits. Your
printer can't print all the way to the edge, so the header/footer
margins should be big enough to block out the area that your printer
can't print on anyhow.

The header/footers margins can be larger or smaller than or equal to the
document margins, that actually doesn't matter so much--just realize
that a header/footer margin bigger than the document margin will push
into the document and effectively change your document margin, unless
the header/footer is empty.

The footer text fits between the footer margin and the bottom margin. I
notice that you are only giving your footer .04 hundreds of an inch of
vertical height to exist in, though I'm not sure if that matters, as the
footer will automatically push the main text out of the way as necessary.

Daiya

 

[Michelle]

I thought that I sent this reply earlier today, but it must not have
gone through. I'll try to remember everything that I wrote before.
First off, I will download PDFLab and try it next time I have an issue
like this.

As far as the Header part, I didn't have anything placed in the
header--I was only using the footer. The error messages only referred
to a footer problem also.

I was wondering whether a footer would just move into the document
margin if it needed to--pushing the document margin up--or if it would
overlap text. I guess that answers that question. I'm almost
finished with my current project anyway--but I'll definitely try
playing around with margins/footers some time soon. I just need to do
a little experimenting and taking notes on what works/doesn't work. I
often figure out the best settings, but then the next time I have to
do it, I've forgotten what those "best" settings were and have to work
through them again. I'm sure that I probably never do it the same way
twice!

I saw the request for send to PDF "testing documents" --I'll have to
ask my friend for permission to send in the recipe booklet to
Microsoft to help them work their bugs out.

Thanks for all of your help Daiya!