Document set-up vs Page Tool differ?

[Spenno]

Good morning. Quick conudrum that's been bugging me with altering page size.
I artwork ads all day, resizing documents and supplying. I alter size via Document set-up, PDF, job done.
A freelancer came in to help out this week and I noticed all their documents PDFed at the correct size, but that document set-up said the size was something else. I watched them design an ad and they changed the page size using the page tool (third icon down). In all those instances, the page sizes differered from what document set-up was telling me, but they all PDFed at the correct size.

Most confusing for me as I'd never used the page tool. So in what instance should it be used, and why doesn't Document set-up update to reflect the new size? Is it a bug, or am I overlooking something obvious?

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

Hi @Spenno ,

document size is globally for all pages of a new document.

The Page tool is able to change the size of individual pages so the document size will not fit anymore.

Working on ads:

When my document is one page only my personal workflow is to change the page size through document size in case that the add needs a new size. With different sized ads (and therefore different sized pages) in one document I have to change the size with the Page tool on individual pages.

Even if you are on a document with one page only, you cannot be sure that document size reflects page size.

That's no bug. Just how the feature is designed. FWIW: parent pages could also be of a different size than the document pages or the document page size…

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Spenno]

Thanks for the explanation Uwe.

[Willi Adelberger]

You should always set up the document with the globa Document Set upo… or with the same functions in a new document.

The page tool is only for relative small documents with exceptions. I use it only for book covers or for trifolds, where one page or master has a different size than the others. 

I have got documents from others where the whole book had the same size, but the size was changed via the page tool. This caused incredible large file siizes. With reducing the document to its original size and changing the file size via document set up the file size shrinked massive. That is why I strongly recommand to use document set up and use the page tool for small documents with exceptions only.