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S
Scrubnib
Participant
June 18, 2010
Answered

Standardise page sizes in merged PDF?

  • June 18, 2010
  • 4 replies
  • 109043 views

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to merge together a PowerPoint '07 and an Excel '07 file, both set to A4 lanscape page layouts, in Acrobat 9 Standard.  However, in the final merged PDF, the old Excel pages are huge compared to the PowerPoint slides - about 6 times larger.

Any ideas how I can force Adobe output a merged PDF all in the same page size and orientation?

Thanks in advance,

Simon

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer williwild3

      I think I would concentrate on why the PDFs for the PPT and Excel are not A4. Resolve that issue and you should be set. I do not think it is a merge issue, unless the merge process is doing the conversion at the same time. In that case, check the properties of PDF Maker in each application with the corresponding file.


      I had this same problem. I sent someone an 8 page document to which they signed 2 and scanned and returned them. When I tried to replace those 2 pages into my original (giving me a complete and signed document) the pages I inserted were smaller than those of the original.

      DO THIS: Mouse over the bottom left side of the page in Adobe Acrobat. You will see which pages are WRONG. In my case, it was the originals that were too large. I then printed them via Adobe PDF Printer. Select "fit to printable area" (checking those dimensions to be at 8.5x11) When the document was printed this way, it was easy to fit those other pages in as they were all now the same size. No messing with the zoom which is a nightmare.

      4 replies

      ServantSaint
      ServantSaint
      Participant
      January 8, 2021

      I have the solution and it works consistantly...

      work around but somehow it works

       

      select 'organize pages' from the edit pdf drop down

      hold 'shift' and select all pages

      on the organize pages ribbon to the far right, You will see a 'more' dropdown menu

      click on the 'set page boxes' 

      at the bottom of the pop up window there should be a 'change page size' radio buttons

      select custom and type in the right width and height, in My case 8.5 and 11 was chosen

      click ok 

      now select edt pdf from the options, Your pages will still be wrong but this is ok...

      now scroll to the 'too large pages' and acrobat will auto draw bounding boxes around objects

      click on any of them and adobe should instantly resize the entire page,

      then it is just a matter of clicking on any bounding box on any large page and they should reduce to the same size.

      I did this on some legal work with scanned type and it came through from a pdf the scanner saved, so for some reason the scanned pdf was several times bigger than the others. when I printed, it came out just fine, but if You are emailing or filing a document, then the pdf will stay very different sizes prior to the step I have outlined above .

        J
        Jo25007848e1tr
        Participant
        June 25, 2022

        This is amazing - you have saved me a huge amount of work and worked perfectly thank you for this!

         

        O
        OppfinnarKnullare
        Participating Frequently
        September 6, 2010

        OK, so was there a way to set all pages of a pdf to the same size?

        There needs to be,because the insert page is flawed...

        I have two documents, both of which have pages of the size 8.27x11.69 inch, open in Acrobat 9.0 Pro.

        Now, if I copy one page from the first of these documents and insert from clipboard into the other, the inserted page becomes 22.55x31.89 inch!

        How do I fix this?

        And BTW, I *hate* the SDI interface!!

        S
        ScrubnibAuthor
        Participant
        September 6, 2010

        Have you tried the 'Adobe PDF' print option outlined above?  That worked perfectly for me, all page sizes turn out equal.

        O
        OppfinnarKnullare
        Participating Frequently
        September 7, 2010

        Thanks, but no I didn't try it. I was looking for a quick and easy way. Since "insert from clipboard" is obviously flawed, I thought that maybe there was a quick and easy way to counter the bug, but alas no, it seems...

        I solved it in a way similar to the print approach.

        1. Select the page you want to copy

        2. Save it to a file

        3. In the other document, insert the file

        This works, but I still feel it is too cumbersome.

        Note that my problem is not that the page has one size and I want to copy it to a document with pages of another size. Everything is the same size. My problem is that the "insert from clipboard" command doesn't work correctly.

        CtDave
        CtDave
        Participating Frequently
        June 19, 2010

        Acrobat's combine feature to merge files into one PDF does not provide a page size "editor".
        Likely a cleaner work flow if the input files had page size adjusted by their native application.
        Once done, use combine to merge into the single PDF.
        You may find this is (over all) easier than using the Crop Tool resize features.

        To view any PDF's page size when open in Adobe Reader/Acrobat go into Preferences.
        Select the Page Display catagory then tick the "Always show document page size" choice.


        Be well

        S
        ScrubnibAuthor
        Participant
        June 21, 2010

        Thanks for your suggestions guys.

        All three docuemnts I'm trying to merge are set to A4 (roughly 11.69 x  8.27 inches) in their native applications.  I've checked out the merged page sizes - the PowerPoint remains the same, one Excel goes to 23.39 x 16.54" and the other Excel goes to a whopping 36.54 x 25.84"!

        I also can't find a 'resize' option in the crop tool, perhaps that's only available for Acrobat professional...?

        Anything else you can suggest would be gratefully recieved!

        Cheers,

        Simon

        Bernd Alheit
        Community Expert
        Bernd AlheitCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        June 21, 2010

        First create the PDF files then combine the PDF files in Acrobat.

        B
        Bill12
        Inspiring
        June 19, 2010

        If you check the lower left corner of Acrobat for each PDF, do they indicate the proper dimensions or something else? If the dimension is wrong, you might try the resize option in the crop tool.

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