Pages A4 format 20,99x29,7 instead of 21,0x29,7: how to fix it?

This is interesting. Does your colleagues use Mac or PC? I don't think the issue is Pages or Mac or even PC with Windows, because I have used Pages and sent it to my workPC and have had no problem printing it on the office printer (HP LAser something). I don't think 0.01 cm makes any difference anywhere concerning printing. The paper size isn't specific for Pages, it is global for the system and shouldn't be any problem for people who usually print US legal or other sizes.

What printers are your colleagues using? What are the problems they are having? Please describe them. Just saying they have problems doesn't give much information.

Lorenzo

The base units used by Pages and everything Apple does in Postscript is DTP points

These have been defined to be 72 DTP pts/inch.

or

72 DTP pts / 2.54cm exactly.

This translates an A4 sheet into 595.27559055118 x 841.88976377953 pts.

This suggests to me that Apple is rounding their dimensions to the nearest whole point: down to 595 and up to 842 pts.

Then they are calculating that back to cm to 2 decimal places. Which would give you 20.99 x 29.70 cm.

Creating your own custom sizes would not escape this method of calculation.

This is something I complained about early on to Apple and in my current version of Pages 4.03 the size is being reported correctly at 21.0 x 29.7cm. Whether Apple has changed their calculations to another decimal point or two or simply made a cosmetic fudge, I don't know.

How have you determined your sizes? Is it possible the error is creeping in when it is being transferred to Windows?

Peter

Mine says

Page Size: 21cm x 29.7cm in the Document Inspector.

Page Setup… it says 20.99 x 29.7cm

Suggests to me some cosmetic programming by Apple to keep the 95% "minority" of metric users off their back.

Peter

It must be that way, but I guess that that it has more to do with the system language than Pages. I opened Pages in english and that didn't change a thing. I don't think will try to change the system language just to find this out. That wont help the OP anyway.

The problem is really simple.

You may set the ruler to the unit of your choice, Pages will calculate every dimensions in points.
This is why the dialogs display a value which is not exactly 210 x 297 mm for A4 paper size.
In fact it's the result of a design choice allowing us to know an accurate value when we define the location of objects.
I guess how numerous user would shout if Apple decided to round measures with a single decimal to be able to display page size as 21.0 x 29.7 cm.

Here is a screenshot of the pages size when the ruler is set to centimeter and the format is set to A4:



Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 9 novembre 2009 21:03:03

Yvan

That is what I already reported above.

It was an unfortunate choice when Adobe decided on points as the basic measure of Postscript and Apple went along with them. Now we are stuck with an antiquated and clumsy measure.

Peter

Zopilote

Read the other posts.

I worked out how Apple is calculating the size and it has an inbuilt error in it.

You are right it is the wrong size.

The A4 from NeoOffice is also the wrong size as they all use the same printer drivers.

Peter

I have just run a test and determined:

Apple is taking the points size to 1 decimal place.

Their version of A4 is:

595.2 x 841.8 pts

or

20.9973 x 29.6968 cms

Peter

My computer says 20.99 by 29.7 cm when I look at in Pages09.
20.997 should by 21.0 if it was shortened correctly.

I tested it Zopilote,

The A4 from NeoOffice is exactly the same size as the A4 from Pages, or anywhere else on the Mac.

Peter