Frame-PDF page size options (WAS: PDF Emergency -- the end)

[Thomas Neuburger <thomasn -at- twelfthnight -dot- com>]

Hello,

About Rachel Tsruoya's page size problem (below), Dov's solution is right. 
This is just a note of clarification, since there are many permutations of 
the solution available.

The problem is printing to non-standard page sizes when going from Frame to 
PDF. You can set page size in several places:

  In Frame itself (making the Frame page custom)
  In the Acrobat Distiller driver (making the PDF page custom)
  In the Frame Printer Setup dialog box (also making the
     PDF page custom)

Let's look at the permutations:

1. Custom page size in Frame / standard size PDF

In Frame, if you define a page size smaller than your standard (usually A 
or A4), and print to a physical printer (or the Distiller) with standard 
paper in its bin, the Frame page is centered in the larger physical page. 
Turn crop marks on to see the boundaries of the actual smaller page.

This option can be useful, even when printing to the Distiller, when 
proofing layout. If at the end of the job you'll be sending PDF to the 
print shop (as many of us do), you'll want to proof the layout on your 
office printer by printing from PDF, not from Frame. This shows you more 
closely what the print vendor will produce. (In my case, my HP office 
printer stretches some fonts slightly, making them taller, when printed 
directly from Frame. So I print proof pages to PDF, using the custom page 
size in Frame and the standard size in PDF, and then print the PDF to the 
HP. The crop marks show up on the larger physical sheet.)

You can also send standard-page PDF's with crop marks to customers as 
proofs or drafts. Since they will likely print these to an office printer, 
the standard page size is appropriate. And those crop marks add a nice 
professional flavor to your offering.


2. Custom page size in Frame / custom size PDF

If you want the PDF page size to be different than the standard (matching 
the page size you've defined in Frame), you have two ways to do it--make 
the custom page size the Distiller default, or reset the Distiller page 
size in Frame once per session.

In either case, you must define the custom page size you want in the driver 
before you start (as Dov emphasized below).

To define a custom page size in the Distiller driver (Win98 version):

1. Click Start / Settings / Printers.
2. Right click on the Distiller printer and select Properties.
3. Click the Paper tab.
4. In the page size icon scroll list, scroll all the way to the right, to 
one of the custom page icons, select it, and click the Custom button.
5. In the Custom-Defined dialog box, name and set the page size; then click OK.

The new page size is now defined. Note that the driver properties box is 
still open.

At this point I'd pick a default page size for the driver--either the 
standard size for your region or the new page size. (Note that there's 
always a default; setting it now just reminds you what that is.)

To set the default page size, highlight a page size in the scroll list and 
click OK in the driver properties dialog box.


Now, depending on the default page size you chose above, you access the 
custom page in Frame in one of two ways:

IF YOU SET THE CUSTOM PAGE AS THE PDF DEFAULT, any printing to the 
Distiller will pick up this page size automatically. In Frame, just print 
to the Distiller and you get the custom page.

IF YOU SET YOUR STANDARD PAGE AS THE PDF DEFAULT, to print from Frame to 
the new page size you must enter Print Setup in the current Frame session 
and reset the paper size for the Distiller there. If you don't, Frame will 
print to the Distiller default page, the standard one. When you close 
Frame, this setting is lost, so it must be reset each session.


Note that if you chose the first option, you don't have to remember to 
reset the page size for each Frame session, but the default then applies 
for all printing to Distiller unless overridden.

If you choose the second option, you have to override the default in each 
Frame session. This can produce confusing results if you don't access the 
Distiller custom page often ("Gee, it worked in June...").


Like I said, a lot of permutations. For my work, I toggle the default in 
the driver--make the custom page the default when I have a job that uses it 
frequently, then change it back to standard when that job is done.

Hope this helps,


Tom Neuburger

The Masters Series: FrameMaker 6
ISBN 1-930597-01-0

Softpro and Quantum Books in MA
Bookpeople in Austin TX
Irvine Sci-Tech Books in CA



Dov Isaacs wrote: