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PeteAeonix
New Participant
April 16, 2018
Answered

Stop acrobat from auto-shrinking booklet and multiple-page printing

  • April 16, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 7286 views

Whenever I print multiple pages or booklets, Acrobat shrinks the pages, even though I have adequate margins that don't need shrinking. For example, I have two 8-1/2 pages printed 2-up on an 11 x 17 sheet. Acrobat always shrinks the full 8-1/2 inch page to fit within the assumed printable margins of the larger page. Likewise, I have a document set up as 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 to print as a booklet, and Acrobat shrinks the pages to fit within the print area of the sheets.

This is doubly frustrating because my printer will print edge to edge (it is a Xerox Phaser 7760GX color laser) on all sizes of paper it handles.

Correct answer Abambo

That's a "feature" by design. Unfortunately it cant be disabled. You need to do an imposition either using a third party plug-in tool or with Indesign or similar. If you have Indesign, you can place the PDF file in Indesign imposing manually or using the print booklet option.

2 replies

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washburnv6068414
Participating Frequently
October 31, 2023

It has taken me 2 years(!) to realise that there is a very simple workaround for this is, involving no add-ins or special software, and printer independent. No need to use InDesign or anything lie that. But I'm hesitatant about posting it here in case Adobe find a way of preventing it. Shall I post it?

    N
    nedelin
    New Participant
    February 7, 2025

    Hi, can you please share your solution? I have the same problem with documents.

    T
    Community Manager
    Tariq AhmadCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    February 7, 2025

    Hi @nedelin, 

     

    Thanks for posting here. 

    Are you aware that your printer supports no-margin printing? If yes, try updating your printer drivers; Acrobat adheres to printer drivers to print within margin limits, assuming you are using Acrobat. 

    Does it print as expected, If you print via the same printer with another application? If everything is working fine and it is only Acrobat that is giving you trouble please help us with the following:

    • Acrobat version installed:   https://adobe.ly/3PQQ7nE
    • OS name and version.
    • Printer make and model - and driver version number. 
    • PDF file and scanned copy of the printed document.

     

    Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to make things right.

     

     

    ~Tariq 

    Abambo
    AbamboCorrect answer
    Adobe Expert
    April 16, 2018

    That's a "feature" by design. Unfortunately it cant be disabled. You need to do an imposition either using a third party plug-in tool or with Indesign or similar. If you have Indesign, you can place the PDF file in Indesign imposing manually or using the print booklet option.

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
    P
    PeteAeonixAuthor
    New Participant
    April 16, 2018

    Appreciate the answer and it was what I expected (thought I thought I'd ask in case I'd missed something).

    The document was created in the current version of InDesign ... and, unfortunately, the "print booklet" procedure (after a little fiddling around) looked like it would do the trick -- except InDesign and my Mac (MacOS 10.13.4) tends to get indigestion on the Xerox Print Driver for my Xerox Phaser 7760GX -- and I can't get 2-sided printing out of the Booklet Print command. I was using Acrobat (that has less indigestion (in general) with the Xerox driver. (Indigestion being "it crashes the program where the print command originates.")

    The print driver problem is another situation entirely that I've been working on for some time. I haven't had "clean" printing since MacOS 10.10.x and it is a moving target.

    Thanks for your help

    P
    PeteAeonixAuthor
    New Participant
    April 17, 2018

    If it is an 8 page booklet, you could impose it manually. New Indesign->place page by page in booklet order (4 1 2 3 for a 4 pages booklet) and export as PDF. You can place Indesign pages into a new document or PDF pages, like any graphics.

    That way, it is easy to maintain in case of updates. Just update the links.


    I once owned a small print shop -- where we did this kind of stuff manually quite frequently, if not daily. I was simply hoping that InDesign (or Acrobat) had a system that would save me the trouble of a manual imposition. But I'm caught between a quirky print driver and a "helpful" program. (FWIW, the particular booklet has 32 pages resulting in 8 printed sheets.) But this comes up every so often with occasional projects that are simply too small to be worth sending out to a printer or copy shop for production. It's infrequent enough that it's not worth purchasing a commercial imposition program, especially since 2-up is all I'd ever do in my office.

    I more commonly (for personal purposes) use the Acrobat feature of 'multiple page" where I take sheet music and put two 8-1/2  x 11 pages on an 11 x 17 sheet. I notice that if I "crop" the letter size sheets smaller, then Acrobat then shrinks them less. I may try cropping the pages from this booklet and see what Acrobat does with under-sized sheets. I may yet get a happier result.

    Thanks again for your helpful suggestions.

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