How to resize a PDF?

[czucker]

I work for a publishing house and we routinely need to reduce PDFs of hardcovers, down to paperback size. We used to do this by adding any new/changed material the a PDF of the hardcover, opening it up in Acrobat, and then printing to a postscript file at the desired percentage. Now that Acrobat will no longer allow printing to postscript out workflow has been pretty much stopped dead in its tracks.

The save as postscript command in the file menu is all well and good, but it has no ability to enter a scaling percentage. We're stuck with 100%.

Is there a genius out there who has, or can, figure out a workaround for this?

I'm trying to get this done only using Acrobat. I know there are tools out there like PitStop Pro that can scale PDFs, but they're not really an option at the moment.

Thanks in advance,
Chris

 

[Greg_Firestone]

Hi Chris,

You can place the PDFs in InDesign (or Quark) and resize them there as long as you're only resizing and not adjusting elements.

Regards,
Greg

 

[czucker]

Thanks for the quick reply Greg.

I'd considered that possibility, but it's not really workable for us. We're typically dealing with PDF files that can be a thousand pages long (okay, 352-496 is probably average but they can go much higher on occasion).

I know there are scripts for importing multi-page PDFs into InDesign, but I'd really hate to deal with an INDD file with so many placed PDF pages.

 

[mglouis]

Hi Chris,

Save as postscript. Open postscript in a text editor. If the page is 8.5x11 then search and replace "<</PageSize [612 792 ] >> setpagedevice" with "<</PageSize [YourNewWidth YourNewHeight ] >> setpagedevice".

Save the postscript. Distill the modified postscript.

Convert postscript point to inches with a utility such as this. PostScript Points to Inchs Conversion Calculator

- Matt Louis

 

[mglouis]

Chris,

My apologies. There merely crops the page and does not scale. I wasn't thinking.

Matt Louis

 

[czucker]

Hi Matt,
I just found that out. I was excited for a second there. I was already thinking of getting a script or automator PDF service together to handle that.

I can't say I've ever opened a PS file in a text editor before this afternoon. Could this still be a potential avenue to investigate?

-Chris

 

[Joe Duffy]

Kind of a BS solution but...
create a custom page size in the PDF Printer, print the pdf to that page size and click scale to fit.
It works for smaller files, have not tried this on a file your size but I reduce Letter size pages down to 5.5 x 8.5 with this format.

 

[mglouis]

Chris,

Very doable. To verify I opened a 45 page 8.27" x 8.27" pdf, save a .PS and then did a search and "replace all" in bbedit. Text wrangler is free and should work just as well.

Step 1

search
%%EndPageSetup

replace
0.5 0.5 scale
%%EndPageSetup

This resulted in all content shrinking 50% with content anchored at the bottom left.

Step2

search
<</PageSize [595.276 595.276 ] >> setpagedevice
replace
<</PageSize [297.638 297.638 ] >> setpagedevice

This set the media box to the same size as the content.

If the values of this test were swapped with the values for your books then you would have a solution.

- Matt Louis

 

[leonardr]

I work for a publishing house and we routinely need to reduce PDFs of hardcovers, down to paperback size. We used to do this by adding any new/changed material the a PDF of the hardcover, opening it up in Acrobat, and then printing to a postscript file at the desired percentage.

all the standard comments about why refrying PDF files is a BAD IDEA go here...

Now that Acrobat will no longer allow printing to postscript out workflow has been pretty much stopped dead in its tracks.

What gives you the impression that you can't print to Postscript from Acrobat?

I'm trying to get this done only using Acrobat. I know there are tools out there like PitStop Pro that can scale PDFs, but they're not really an option at the moment.

Why not? Price? Locked down machines? Other?

 

[pcmodem]

If there isn't a check box in Acrobat to "Save to File". You could create a virtual printer which saves to disk. Problem solved.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

there is an export but it's called "save as…" and look at more options. But don't know why you would want to… normally this kind of thing is done in imposition software.

 

[tchelsa]

Hi,

A document in PDF format is a finalize format. You don't have the permission to changed size without editing something, and Acrobat Reader is not an editor.

Adobe Acrobat" is an editor, but its expensive (definitely NOT FREE) PDF file creation tool. You can edit a PDF file using Adobe Acrobat. You probably have Adobe Acrobat Reader, that is free.

Thanks,
...C

 

[DCurry]

I agree with Lukas about doing this in the impo step, or depending on how your workflow is letting the RIP do it. Much safer.

 

[czucker]

Chris,

Very doable. To verify I opened a 45 page 8.27" x 8.27" pdf, save a .PS and then did a search and "replace all" in bbedit. Text wrangler is free and should work just as well.

Step 1

search
%%EndPageSetup

replace
0.5 0.5 scale
%%EndPageSetup

This resulted in all content shrinking 50% with content anchored at the bottom left.

Step2

search
<</PageSize [595.276 595.276 ] >> setpagedevice
replace
<</PageSize [297.638 297.638 ] >> setpagedevice

This set the media box to the same size as the content.

If the values of this test were swapped with the values for your books then you would have a solution.

- Matt Louis

I wrote a script over the weekend that does just that.

However, it only works with PS files output from InDesign at the moment, not saved as PS from Acrobat.

I've found the code that needs replacing in an Acrobat PS file and just need to tweak the script a bit.

Learning GREP in InDesign sure came in handy.

 

[czucker]

I agree with Lukas about doing this in the impo step, or depending on how your workflow is letting the RIP do it. Much safer.

The problem is that we're trying to do this in house and deliver a final file to the printer at the correct reduction.

And to clarify to some of the other posters. I understand that in the latest version of Acrobat you can save to postscript. There is no scale option though. When you used to be able to print to a .ps file, you had access the the print dialog scaling option.

That's the part I need.

However, as posted above, a simple find/replace script seems to be doing a fine job.

 

[kandod]

I don't understand something here, why do you need to print to a postscript if your goal is to shrink/enlarge the size (proportionally), cant you print to a predefined size in AdobePDF printer with scale to fit option?

 

[maryusdemetry]

Maybe with Scribus (Open source) you can do it

 

[Nkazy]

We use this a plug-in call autopage to do this all the time. AutoPagex Plug-in for Adobe® Acrobat® / Advanced Page Management Tools I would be lost without it.