Acrobat: Changing size of rectangle? NOT an annotaion

[Schmaltzkop]

Hi, there.
I am the "new kid on the [Print Planet] block," but I have been working with Acrobat Pro XI and Pitstop 12/13 for almost a year now.
Maybe you could help me. I have a number of documents in which almost half of the pages have a text gutter in which there is a gray "bar" (some are lines with a stroke, and some are thin rectangles), as such:

What I need to do is this:
1. Make the bar thinner, and
2. Center the bar to the gutter
(some bars are thin enough, so they only need step #2)

How can I do this with either:
1. [javascript] scripting, or
2. a Pitstop Action list?

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
SK

 

[Stephen Marsh]

A PitStop action list can change the box… Can you provide a download link to some samples?

What is common about the boxes?

Are they all the same fill and or stroke colour? Are they always in a similar position, centred on the page, but variable width within the gutter area?


Stephen Marsh

 

[Schmaltzkop]

The boxes have various heights (I do NOT want to change the hieghts), and widths ranging from 5.5pts-9pts. Their color ranges from Device gray 81.5-86 (but I already have an action list to make the grays uniform). They are not really in the same positions on each page - some are higher, some are lower, etc.
Please see attachment...

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Thanks, as long as the gutter area is consistent, then it should be easy enough.

Your file has page content “all over the place”… Will there be any consistency in page boxes, location of the object etc? I was hoping that the gutter would be in a consistent position on left and or right facing pages. If not, I will just need to make the selection region larger to potentially capture such an element. It is also good to build in “qualifiers” so that no text is selected for example.

Otherwise I’ll have to select the object based on it’s properties, not with the safer position/region and properties. Will all pages only consist of solid text and tinted boxes?

P.S. Should the box really be in “all/registration” colour?


Stephen Marsh

 

[Stephen Marsh]

To get you started, I have attached a couple of action lists using 2 different selection methods, the resize is to 0.5mm width so you will need to adjust that.


Stephen Marsh


View attachment Archive.zip

 

[Schmaltzkop]

Thank you for that, BUT
my Pitstop Pro 13 Action list panel gives me the following error when I try importing both of your Action lists

To give you more info, the pages contain only black (Device gray: 0%) text, and these bars, which I already mentioned may vary from Device gray 81-86%.
Again, their width ranges from 4.5-9pts, and their length (which will remain unchanged) varies.
They may appear on both right and left pages of my 612 x 855pt document, ranging from X: 212-235 or 380-403

 

[Joe]

Did you unzip the .zip file to find the 2 .eal files. They imported fine for me.

 

[Schmaltzkop]

In Windows 7, I downloaded the archive, went to my Action List panel, tried importing it by navigating to "C:\Users\Schmaltzkop\Downloads\Archive (3).zip," and got that error...

 

[Schmaltzkop]

I got it to import, but are you using Pitstop 2017? I'm using 13...

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Ah yes, I did not realise that I was using a feature that was specific to 2017…

Here are screenshots of my two files, is it the resize step? Offhand the other steps should not be specific to the new version (looks like I have to re-read the release notes).

The boxes show as a tint of registration/all colour on the supplied file.

Stephen Marsh


View attachment screenshots.zip

 

[abc]

Scale Selection is a new PitStop 2017 Action, so it won't work in older versions.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Goes to show how fast the new features become indispensable and feel like they have always been there!


Stephen Marsh

 

[abc]

You ain't seen nothing yet!

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Hah, now your just teasing ABC!

A manual way of achieving the same end for those not yet on 2017 is to remove the last step from my action list and change it to something else, such as a colour fill change from registration colour to say 10% K for example. Run the action list on all pages… Only the tinted gutter rule/rectangle will be selected on all pages and one can use the Enfocus Navigator window/pallet to cycle from object to object, page to page with the object remaining selected. On each page, use the Enfocus Inspector window/pallet and then go to the position tab and then change the width of the selected object to the required size… then use the Navigator to jump to the next object and repeat until finished.


Stephen Marsh

 

[Schmaltzkop]

Sounds pretty "manual" (my docs contain 350-700 pages of which almost half have these bars).
I think that I found a work-around. In my action list, instead of the "Scale" action, I recorded (pressed "record" button on bottom of Action List Editor) the following:
manually selecting the bar, and changing the width or stroke-thickness in the Inspector.
This appeared in the Action List as "move selection" or something like that, but it worked for me. (I have two separate action lists - one for the width-change action, and the other for the "stroke-thickness-change action").
I hope this helps all those poor souls who have not upgraded to Pitstop Pro 2017

 

[Stephen Marsh]

I did mention that it was manual!

Of course, I did try recording only the width change using the Inspector before I floated the suggestion of doing the size change manually from the auto selection… Back in post #4 I noted and asked you: ‘Your file has page content “all over the place”… Will there be any consistency in page boxes, location of the object etc?’ However I did not receive a reply. I also mentioned and noted more than once that the supplied file had the graphic in registration/all colour, which again I did not receive a reply on.

So I can only presume that the real files are not exactly the same as the one posted, that page content/position is uniform? Perhaps the recording of the change picked up other info in the Inspector window, even though the only thing actively changed was width of the selected bar graphic.


Stephen Marsh

 

[Schmaltzkop]

Thank you for replying to my post Mr. Marsh.
(Just for the record, this post does not appear on the same page as our original discussion. The original page is:
https://printplanet.com/forum/prepr...t-changing-size-of-rectangle-not-an-annotaion
)
If you refer to post #6, I believe that I provided you with the requested information.
(I DID send you a mock-up of the file, as I do not want to deal with getting proper authorization from my supervisor to release a company file).

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Thank you for replying to my post Mr. Marsh.
(Just for the record, this post does not appear on the same page as our original discussion. The original page is:
https://printplanet.com/forum/prepr...t-changing-size-of-rectangle-not-an-annotaion
)
If you refer to post #6, I believe that I provided you with the requested information.
(I DID send you a mock-up of the file, as I do not want to deal with getting proper authorization from my supervisor to release a company file).

Thank you Schmaltzkop, I must have been having a bad day! :]

I like to help, however it can be annoying when relying on presented information or files if the information is wrong. GIGO and all that. I go through this enough in my paying job!

…and these bars, which I already mentioned may vary from Device gray 81-86%.

The sample PDF file shows these bars as registration/all colour, both with Acrobat and PitStop tools, not as Device gray.

They may appear on both right and left pages of my 612 x 855pt document, ranging from X: 212-235 or 380-403

I agree that there is no consistent position for these bars… This is the part that I can’t understand how/why your results vary from mine.

When I record the manual resize of the bar’s width using the Inspector and play back on the entire test document, the bars change position. It is as if the recorded step is also capturing and changing the position of the bars, not just their width.

So, all that I can think of is:

1) There is a difference in how PitStop 13 vs 2017 handles the recording and or playback of changing the width of these bars and applying it to the entire test document provided

or

2) The bars changed their horizontal/X position for you too on the test file, however this does not matter as your live file was not exactly the same, or perhaps you applied two different recorded outcomes against all left hand pages, then a different resize recording against the right hand side pages.

I don’t like it that I am getting different results than you are. Perhaps I have overlooked something, or something else is out of place…


Regards,

Stephen Marsh

 

[Schmaltzkop]

Good Morning, Stephen.
Thank you for putting so much energy into my issue.
Re: the registration/all-black issue, I think you and I know how to deal with it whether it is reistration, all black or "device gray."

Regarding:
"When I record the manual resize of the bar’s width using the Inspector and play back on the entire test document, the bars change position. It is as if the recorded step is also capturing and changing the position of the bars, not just their width."

I noticed that also, but it didn't matter to me, because I was centering it horizontally anyway, and then I found a method of x-postioning correctly.
It WOULD BE HELPFUL if you could tell me if there is a way to incorporate into the action list a "center horizontally" on an OBJECT or SELECTION.