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_Kerryn_Humphreys_
Participating Frequently
April 7, 2008
Question

A4 default is the wrong size

  • April 7, 2008
  • 24 replies
  • 50286 views
When I print from Word to PDF the page settings are lost, I've tried all the various suggestions on the FAQ's on both Adobe and Microsoft as well as on this forum but no joy, the pages are over running. However, I have discovered that the default page size for A4 in Acrobat is different from everything else. Acrobat has it sized at 21.59 x 27.94 whilst everywhere else it's sized at 21 x 29.7. I have created a custom size (both page size and distiller settings) for the correct dimensions but it's still printing short and narrow. Any suggestions most welcome.
We're using Adobe Acrobat Standard Version 7.0.9, MS Office 2003 & windows XP Pro if that helps.
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    24 replies

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    _Kerryn_Humphreys_Author
    Participating Frequently
    April 9, 2008
    Hi Aandi

    Thanks for the latest suggestion, and yes, we've tried that too. Both allowing and not allowing - no difference!
    Kerryn
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    _Kerryn_Humphreys_Author
    Participating Frequently
    April 9, 2008
    PDF is not our default printer.
    Yes, I appreciate that different printers have different settings; we use several on our network, each with their own quirks and layout. What this doesnt explain is why when printing to A4 PDF the end result is identical to printing to a Letter size PDF, if you print the resulting A4 PDF to paper there are large margins and the two versions can be overlaid with no discernable difference. Additionally if we size the word doc to Letter the Letter sized PDF is only slightly different from the main document. Perhaps there's a way to change the A4 margins?
    I should add that this doesn't happen with any other printer on the network just the PDF option. We're baffled.
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    _Aandi_Inston_
    Participating Frequently
    April 9, 2008
    Not sure if you've covered this, but have you looked at your Word
    Print options, especially the value of the "Allow A4/Letter paper
    resizing" option?

    Aandi Inston
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    _de_Siem_
    Participating Frequently
    April 8, 2008
    I think you're running into the issue described here:
    http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bbad444/0

    I assume your default printer is not the Adobe PDF printer?
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    _Kerryn_Humphreys_Author
    Participating Frequently
    April 8, 2008
    Bill
    Thanks for joining in.
    Yes, we've done that too but it made no difference.
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    _Kerryn_Humphreys_Author
    Participating Frequently
    April 8, 2008
    Comparing the PDF on screen side by side with the word print preview or the main document. Actual paper print outs are different yet again but that's not a problem.

    The line and page breaks are the same regardless of whether the PDF is A4 or letter (by checking bottom left for dimensions). They are in the same places as when Word is set to letter size. It's this that leads us to suppose that the A4 default is the wrong size.
    B
    Bill12
    Inspiring
    April 8, 2008
    One other place to try is the Adobe PDF document properties (should be the printer properties) and select Advanced on the Layout tab. That should bring up a selection in the Paper/Output that shows Paper Size. I am not sure about all the interactions, but I usually make the changes there. It seems like the settings tab and this one are related. I just made the change to A4 in that place and printed from Acrobat (a letter size file) and got one that is 8.27X11.69 in (I think that is A4).
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    _de_Siem_
    Participating Frequently
    April 8, 2008
    i It's showing 20.988 x 29.7 cm

    So the PDF is in A4.

    Are you comparing the printout of the PDF to the printout of the Word file by any chance?
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    _Kerryn_Humphreys_Author
    Participating Frequently
    April 8, 2008
    We're printing to PDF and have also tried convert to PDF in Acrobat. We don't have an acrobat button in Word.
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    _Kerryn_Humphreys_Author
    Participating Frequently
    April 7, 2008
    To Aandi - Yep, done that too. Still end up with the same short pages and lots of white space. We've checked the scaling too!
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    _Aandi_Inston_
    Participating Frequently
    April 7, 2008
    Are you printing to PDF or using the Acrobat button in Word? If one,
    what happens when you do the other?

    Aandi Inston
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    _Kerryn_Humphreys_Author
    Participating Frequently
    April 7, 2008
    It's showing 20.988 x 29.7 cm, however the copy is still identical to printing onto letter (which shows 21.588 x 27.939), just more white space. over a thirteen page A4 document we're running nearly half way down page fourteen.
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