Text breaking into more than a single pdf

[Tony Burton]

On saving a long document to pdf format, 4 separate sequential pdfs were
made, breaking at section breaks. What is going on and can I stop it?

Thanks for any help, Tony

 

[Phillip Jones]

No For some reason only Adobe knows or doesn't they don't know how to
read MS Word/Excel Page or section breaks. MS system of coding for
Paragraphs, Line breaks, Section Breaks, are unique only to MS.

All is not lost.

If you have Acrobat Pro (maybe Standard will work as well) if the four
sections have been named different names do the following:

open first part with Acrobat and scroll to end of the pages shown.

In Document menu go down to insert pages, open.

Browse to next section you want inserted Choose File.

Choose to insert at end. then click okay.

Scroll to end of this part.

Repeat.

Repeat this until all parts are put back together.

IF you wish to create a document that you want to create PDF you must
never, ever use a page break or a section break.

If you do need to break up in sections because you need to put something
in the header. In one or more sections but not all, then you must go
through this procedure or reinserting the pages, and then saving as a
new Document.

On saving a long document to pdf format, 4 separate sequential pdfs were
made, breaking at section breaks. What is going on and can I stop it?

Thanks for any help, Tony

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Tony,

Section breaks often mean a doc gets sent as a different print job. For
instance, changing orientation to landscape requires a different print job,
at least in Word. Not all section breaks do, however, so it seems a bit
intermittent. Sometimes you can finesse the doc to get rid of your section
breaks, sometimes not.

I use a free utility CombinePDFs to stitch pdfs together.
http://www.monkeybreadsoftware.de/Freeware/CombinePDFs.shtml

I think there is also a MergePDF floating about, haven't used it.

 

[CyberTaz]

What you describe is a common problem when printing docs (to paper or to
PDF). It's a proverbial who-struck-John as far as who is to blame, but there
are only 2 options 'til it gets sorted out:

1- Remove the Section Breaks if you can, or

2- Accept the multiple PDFs & use one of the "stitcher' apps available (try
VersionTracker.com if you don't have Acrobat) to combine them into a single
PDF file.

 

[Tony Burton]

No For some reason only Adobe knows or doesn't they don't know how to
read MS Word/Excel Page or section breaks. MS system of coding for
Paragraphs, Line breaks, Section Breaks, are unique only to MS.

All is not lost.

Thanks, Phillip - I must go the paste-them-all-back-together route as the document requires page and
section breaks.

I may even have to forgo converting to pdf because of the resulting blow-up of pdf file size.

I actually bought Acrobat Standard because I thought that it would do better than Word's "Save to
PDF" command! Not only that but I also discovered that I can't open Word in OS-X to make a .ps file
and use Distiller.

 

[Tony Burton]

Thanks for the info everyone. I downloaded the Combine PDFs app and it seems to work fine.

One curiousity in this is that the creation of multiple pdfs seems somewhat random in that one of my
docs with section breaks remained glued together just fine, and others that did split didn't at
every break.

 

[CyberTaz]

As Daiya says there are a number of variables that seem to influence the
behavior - orientation changes, margin changes & other formatting options
that immediately precede & follow the section breaks.

I'm not sure about Std but in Acrobat Pro there is a Create PDF option for
From Multiple Files. Although CombinePDF is a respected tool you may not
need it.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Elliott Roper]

I actually bought Acrobat Standard because I thought that it would do better
than Word's "Save to
PDF" command! Not only that but I also discovered that I can't open Word in
OS-X to make a .ps file
and use Distiller.

You can you know.

In OS X 10.4.x It is print to PDF » save PDF as Postscript
In earlier versions it is print » save as file » postscript (If I
remember correctly after all this time)

It does a good job. You can then open the ps in preview, which
optionally gives you a pdf too. I mention this, because that is the
workaround for tricking Word into printing eps images properly.

I'll second what everyone else says about stitchers being the way to
proceed. I use one called PDFLab.

Acrobat is a bit of a pig. It leaves poo all over your machine, like
the Acrobat "printer" You have to go to some trouble to stop it putting
itself back in every time you take it out of Word's startup thingys.
Ask again, and I'll try to dig out how I managed to do so all those
years ago.

If you do a lot of work with PDFs. Get OS X 10.4. Preview.app is
stunningly faster and its indexing and search is superb.
If I ever have to mail a Word doc after making an effort to get the
pagination and typography right, I'll always include a PDF copy so the
recipient can see what it looked like before his misconfigured copy of
Word blew it apart.

 

[mmmmark]

I second the use of PDFLab. It is the poor man's Acrobat and is quite
functional!

 

[Elliott Roper]

On 12/9/06 7:41 PM, in article 120920061041478054%[email protected], "Elliott



<snip>

OK, I'm asking, Elliott! (but only if you have time ­ it doesn't do much
harm having "Adobe PDF 7.0" on my list of printers, certainly less toxic
than the toolbars Acrobat installed in Word before I stopped that).

Oops. I got confused. It *was* those toolbars that annoyed me so much.
I don't think the Adobe 'printer' is as evil. Mine's disabled, but I'd
never use it. If something really needs distilling, I'd do so
explicitly.

 

[Phillip Jones]

Thanks, Phillip - I must go the paste-them-all-back-together route as the document requires page and
section breaks.

I may even have to forgo converting to pdf because of the resulting blow-up of pdf file size.

I actually bought Acrobat Standard because I thought that it would do better than Word's "Save to
PDF" command! Not only that but I also discovered that I can't open Word in OS-X to make a .ps file
and use Distiller.

Tony,
The last part about the .ps files. You do that through the print Menu.

In OX.3.x

Go to print and click.

When print menu is open make sure your desired printer is selected.

next click on copies & Pages and switch to Output Options.

click in the check box to make window become active.

click on button and switch to create postscript, from PDF.

now choose print. PS file is Created.

In OSX4.x THe Menu designer needs a slap upside the head with a 2x4.

The command setup is:

Go to Printer and Click.

Window comes up. Click on menu choice for PDF and go to the most
ambitious sounding command any one ever heard (must have been a MS
Transplant)

"Make Postscript file from PDF"

Anyone that has half a Brain knows that that it isn't so When creating a
PDF the Postscript file is always created first.

Anyway its the same command as for OSX3.x just labeled different.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Phillip Jones]

You can you know.

In OS X 10.4.x It is print to PDF » save PDF as Postscript
In earlier versions it is print » save as file » postscript (If I
remember correctly after all this time)

It does a good job. You can then open the ps in preview, which
optionally gives you a pdf too. I mention this, because that is the
workaround for tricking Word into printing eps images properly.

I'll second what everyone else says about stitchers being the way to
proceed. I use one called PDFLab.

Acrobat is a bit of a pig. It leaves poo all over your machine, like
the Acrobat "printer" You have to go to some trouble to stop it putting
itself back in every time you take it out of Word's startup thingys.
Ask again, and I'll try to dig out how I managed to do so all those
years ago.

That's easy.

a permanent cure is:

Create three blank Folder on Desktop.

next use find file to locate three versions of the PDFmaker.


one for Word, Excel and one for Power point.
Pdfmaker.dot is one Word

Think the others are:
PDFMaker.ppa (PowerPoint)
PDFMaker.xla (Excel)

Rename each of the Folders to the exact name of each file. (including
extensions).


Move each file out of their original folders, one at a time and insert
the correctly name Folder in its place.

Repeat with the other two.


This trick takes advantage of a UNIX axiom "You can not replace a Folder
with a File".

Then when Acrobat or Office discoveres they are not there they can
replace them.

If you do a lot of work with PDFs. Get OS X 10.4. Preview.app is
stunningly faster and its indexing and search is superb.
If I ever have to mail a Word doc after making an effort to get the
pagination and typography right, I'll always include a PDF copy so the
recipient can see what it looked like before his misconfigured copy of
Word blew it apart.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Clive Huggan]

Oops. I got confused. It *was* those toolbars that annoyed me so much.
I don't think the Adobe 'printer' is as evil. Mine's disabled, but I'd
never use it. If something really needs distilling, I'd do so
explicitly.

Yep, same here. ;-)

[Kay Bros, McLaren Vale, 98 made me do it...]

CH
===