Resizing PDF

Open your .pdf of the document in the Preview app. and go to:

+Menu > File > Print > Paper Sizes > Manage Custom Sizes > Click on the plus button under the list of page sizes > Double click on "Untitled" & rename to whatever you want, I called it "8x5" > Page size: to what you want > Printer Margins: > User defined > make all zero (no margins) > OK > Paper Size > Select "8x5" (it will be halfway down the list under the line) > Click the button next to "Scale each page to fit paper" > PDF (bottom left crnr of dialog box) > Save as PDF… > pick a location > Save+

No, you will not have to do this 166 times. This will convert the entire book.

I did all this based on what you told us, which is that you already have a pdf of the book.

If you want to make the booklet scale to size straight out of Pages:

+Menu > File > Page Setup > Create the custom page as above (not necessary if you have already done this in Preview or any other application) > Orientation (whichever you want) > Scale: 62% > OK+

+Menu > File > Print > PDF (bottom left crnr of dialog box) > Save as PDF… > pick a location > Save+

Unfortunately American paper sizes are not rational. You will have to chose 62% scale for the short side with a bit of extra paper at each end, as the long side would reduce to 72% and lead to some of the page being cut off.

To get a PDF file for each page,
don't use "Export as PDF"
but use "Print in a PDF file".
The print dialog gives you the ability to select the page to "print".

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 2 novembre 2008 12:05:03)

Evan,

You are the one who knows what you are looking at. It is all a matter of proportions and what white space you want to cut off.

To make the text appear bigger, increase the scale and trim away the excess.

First physically print out the page as it is. Next make a pair of "L" shaped cropping masks out of dark paper. Crop the page till it looks to have the right amount of border. Measure that, then divide it by the actual size of the page (unreduced). This gives you the percentage you need to print to.

You will need probably to make up a custom page to fit the reduced size that will be bigger than your final size. Print to that.

At this point you will need Acrobat Pro or some other .pdf editor to trim off the excess page around the text.

Be aware that this is just an internal mathematical adjustment in the pdf. It does not really cut off anything it just makes a new "trim size" which should be good enough for you to print to your final size with the text area looking a larger proportion of the page.

Evan,

Resizing is pretty easy in Preview.app. In the Tools menu, select Adjust Size and make your changes in the window that appears. This only works for single page documents, so if you have more than one page you may have to consider another solution. Or, you could save your document 1 page at a time, change the size, and then reassemble. If I'm missing your point, perhaps you could describe your situation in more detail.

Regards,

Jerry

If you need to trim excess white space off a pdf document you can do this in Acrobat Pro.

Preview however has problems with trimmed documents, it seems to disregard the trim.

If you are trying to change the size or scale of pdf documents you will not be able to do that in Preview, both options are greyed out.

You can however crop the page using the Select Tool.

I tried a work around of reprinting the pdf to a smaller scale:

+Menu > File > Print > Scale: X% > PDF > Save as PDF…+

However the result actually increased the size of the pdf after having placed it on the default printer page size.

You could try creating a custom small page size and scaling the .pdf to fit on that to see if it works.

Even,

Peter is correct, you can't resize a PDF. I thought I had tested this before I posted, but I must have grabbed another file type by mistake, maybe a png. When I think further about it, it doesn't make much sense to resize a pdf, which is a scalable graphic by nature. I still don't understand what your goal is. And, I'm not even sure where your source material resides. That's why I asked you for more information in my reply.

I don't know whether you are talking about a Pages file that you want to convert to a PDF file of a certain aspect ratio, or if you have a PDF file that you want to use Pages to manipulate to a different aspect ratio, or if you want to combine PDF pages with Pages information.

I predict that the bottom line is that you will use the Print dialog to set the Paper Size to your needs, but I'm only guessing at your goal.

Jerry

Peter is correct, you can't resize a PDF ... When I think further about it, it doesn't make much sense to resize a pdf, which is a scalable graphic by nature.

Correct.

PDF is a page description model. This means that it is an x-y coordinate space with an origin. You define the x and y dimensions in the Page Setup dialog which produces your design space. You define additional subspaces for area composition and area separation by drawing x-y coordinate frames inside the main frame of the design space. Using your x-y coordinates as reference you can apply scaling, skewing and other such reshapings to the frames you set up and to what is in the frames.

Once you have your design space, you can scale that as a whole, or you can place that as a whole in a second x-y coordinate space that you set up (say, placing a small PDF, scaling it a bit down and rotating it a bit in a poster-size design space that you save out as a poster-size PDF with your first PDF nested inside). For instance, when you print you can scale one up, two up, four up, eight up and so forth which is a functionality supported by the underlying x-y coordinate space.

What you can do in terms of changing the dimensions of the design space is to crop, which is a command option in Apple Preview as well as in all PDF editors back to Adobe Acrobat Exchange in 1994. Cropping uses the x-y coordinate space concept and resets the length of the x coordinate, the y coordinate, or both coordinates. Part of the coordinate space that you defined in Page Setup is then not rendered.

Hope this helps,
Henrik

Evan,

I had another thought.

Create a 5.25" x 8" document in Pages and drag in each each page from your existing document as a pdf and resize it to the smaller size by just dragging up the corner, or using the Inspector to set the size to be more accurate.

Then print that to pdf again and you have the pdf at the size you want.

I missed something Evan,

In the print dialog in Preview there is a radio button for "Scale each page to fit paper".

Using this with the custom page you want, will do the job.

Just make sure you eliminate all the margins on your custom page otherwise you will have a white border all around the actual pdf.

We can walk you through creating a custom page if you need.

If you need to trim excess white space off a pdf document you can do this in Acrobat Pro.

Cropping refers to changing the x, the y, or both coordinates to make the page size smaller.
This is Preview > Tools > Crop.

Trimming refers to cutting down from a larger frame to the frame of the page.
This is ColorSync > Filters > PDF/X-3 > Add Trimbox if needed.

Scaling two up, four up, eight up or sixteen up with or without borders.
This is Preview > File > Print > roll down from Copies & Pages to Layout > Pages per Sheet, Layout Direction, Border.

Scaling a PDF can be done by placing the PDF page by page in another application, scaling the nested PDF to size using that applications scaling tools, and saving out as a second PDF from that application. Trouble is that colour compression may be applied twice and search support may be lost.

(Back to standard universal synonyms in Unicode/10646, yugh)

Evan,

Using Media Placeholder, you can drag PDFs in and have them auto-size to the placeholder's dimensions.

To use Media Placeholder, produce a generic graphic of the size you need. Preview will work for this.

Position the generic graphic in your template and leave it Selected. Then, Format > Advanced > Define as Media Placeholder. Using Format > Advanced > Capture Pages, create a Page or Section Template for your Add Section (or Pages) feature. Use Add Section (or Add Pages if in PL mode) for each new page and drag your PDF to the Media Placeholder.

Jerry