WYSIWYG Zoom Level for Pages

Question

Level 1

112 points

WYSIWYG Zoom Level for Pages

I'm trying to recreate a 250-year-old document in Pages. It's scanned and in Adobe Acrobat Reader, but I need to make sure that various lines of text are the same size (or at least close enough that the eye can't tell much difference). I've got the documents side-by-side in Split View, but what I don't know is what zoom level gets WYSIWYG printing in Pages. It's certainly not 100%! 100% zoom in Acrobat Reader does seem to be WYSIWYG (technically I only need to have both documents at the same effective zoom level, not actually 'real size').

Anybody know how to do this? Or do I have to print out a piece of paper and try to eyeball it?

~VIN,MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

Posted on Jan 12, 2018 8:47 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

112 points

Jan 12, 2018 2:08 PM in response to richard grant

richard grant wrote:

That's why I recommend, if your screen is large enough, adjusting the view to display 1 entire Acrobat page and 1 entire Pages page side-by-side.

Yes, that would be fine. Now, what zoom level should I use for each? 100%? At that size, the PDF is 7 ⅝" wide by a ruler—not WYSIWYG, but fairly close. Pages, however, makes the page 5 ½" wide at 100% zoom. So if I took your advice, all the text in the Pages document would be HUGE when printed, if I made the text in Pages look the same size as the text in Acrobat.

However, in the process of verifying this, I answered my own question: At 128 pixels per inch, 150% zoom is roughly close to WYSIWYG in Pages. Not perfect, but fairly close. At 154%, it's perfect. At 112% zoom, Acrobat Reader is WYSIWYG. Now I can visually compare the text in each window to see if they're the same size.

It is absolutely insane that I had to actually get out a physical ruler to do this. 100% should be actual print size on your screen.

Reply

Answer 2

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

112 points

Jan 12, 2018 2:11 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

A suggested work flow:

1. Drag in a sample page of your scans (not OCRed) into Pages.

2. Make that the same size as the original scan using the Adjustments in the sidebar.

3. Lock it.

4. Overlay a Textbox over that text with sample matching text and set that to 50% transparency with perhaps a contrasting color

5. Adjust the text in the Textbox to match the original scan as closely as possible, then save those as Styles.

6. Apply those to your OCRed text.

Peter

Re Step 2: There are no size adjustments in Adjustments. But I see that they're in Size, in the Image tab.

And I see that that would work, and be more precise than what I was looking for. Thanks.

Reply

Answer 3

Jan 12, 2018 2:13 PM in response to Zarquon42

A suggested work flow:

1. Drag in a sample page of your scans (not OCRed) into Pages.

2. Make that the same size as the original scan using the Adjustments in the sidebar.

3. Lock it.

4. Overlay a Textbox over that text with sample matching text and set that to 50% transparency with perhaps a contrasting color

5. Adjust the text in the Textbox to match the original scan as closely as possible, then save those as Styles.

6. Apply those to your OCRed text.

Peter

Reply

Answer 4

Jan 12, 2018 1:59 PM in response to Zarquon42

1. Do you know the font of the original? All fonts vary in apparent size and setting.

2. If you have the same or a similar font, determine matching sizes in Pages by printing out a test sheet with labelled sizes and comparing that to the original.

3. If you scanned this to a known page size in your scanner then you know the actual size of the scan, it is the page size, match that in Pages with an imported scan (not via pdf).

3. Lastly you can set transparency in Pages so can overlay your Pages text on the scanned text and see what it takes to get a match or a close match.

Peter

Reply

Answer 5

Jan 12, 2018 1:41 PM in response to Zarquon42

Pages shrinks imported graphics to fit the space available or some arbitrary number (smaller) if dragged into a clear space.

Seems to me you are tackling this the wrong way.

Didn't you scan this at the same resolution and size? And why is it in a pdf? If it is black and white text you want that to be a tiff scan, the only format you can ensure it is 100% k.

If you must reconstruct this in Pages have a placeholder shape of a set size that you drag the scanned images into.

You do know that if you want to control crop, resolution, quality and size that you can do this in Preview which has some fairly sophisticated graphics handling, thanks to macOS's frameworks?

Peter

Reply

Answer 6

Jan 12, 2018 1:32 PM in response to Zarquon42

Hey Zarquon,

It seems to me this would be largely a function of your screen size, not any inherent property of a Pages document.

If your screen is large enough to display one entire page of a PDF in Acrobat, and you're able to view this side-by-side with one entire page of a Pages document, then you can tweak the latter to be as similar to the former as possible. When you're satisfied, export (or print) the Pages document to PDF format, so as to ensure that the formatting you've worked so hard to achieve is preserved and will look right to anyone else viewing the document. That is essentially the meaning of WYSIWYG, isn't it?

Reply

Answer 7

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

112 points

Jan 12, 2018 2:17 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

No it is not. All Mac and PC screen resolutions vary. Just check their specs.

Peter

Right. At 128 ppi, those measurements should be valid. At a different resolution, things will be different.

Which is insane.

Reply

Answer 8

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

112 points

Jan 12, 2018 1:32 PM in response to richard grant

Harrumph. I suppose you're right. Not screen size, of course, but screen resolution. WYSIWYG means that what you see on the screen mirrors what you see when printed, which means I should be able to take a ruler and lay it over the on-screen ruler, and have them match up. But of course it doesn't work that way. I guess I have to take the ruler and adjust the zoom level until it matches, or something.

Reply

Answer 9

Jan 12, 2018 1:44 PM in response to Zarquon42

Sorry this is a scan or OCR?

Is it text or not text?

A scan is only a picture of text, it is not text. If it was text you'd use Pages text formatting tools to ensure it was whatever you wanted it to be and the size would not vary from what you specified.

Peter

Reply

Answer 10

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

112 points

Jan 12, 2018 1:44 PM in response to richard grant

richard grant wrote:

All those things you can adjust and manipulate using the features of the app, but none of them is related to screen zoom.

But if I am eyeballing these things at the wrong zoom level, I will get them wrong. The effective zoom level of Acrobat and Pages must be the same.

Reply

Answer 11

Jan 12, 2018 1:47 PM in response to Zarquon42

There is a Ruler:

Menu > View > Show Ruler

...and as I suggested use a Placeholder Shape to make them the same size as the original.

I think you have misunderstood the task at hand.

Explain what it is you have as an original source and what you are trying to achieve in the final output and we can advise the best way of achieving that.

Peter

Reply

Answer 12

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

112 points

Jan 12, 2018 1:54 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

There is a Ruler:

Menu > View > Show Ruler

Yes I know; that's why I mentioned the on-screen ruler.

...and as I suggested use a Placeholder Shape to make them the same size as the original.

Peter

I'm still not sure what you mean. I'm not importing graphics; I'm trying to make the fonts the same size (etc.) as in the original. I don't have any scanned images to drag anywhere. Do you mean the pages of the PDF? How would that help? I'm editing the OCR'ed text in Pages, and I want it to look similar to the PDF.

Reply

Answer 13

Jan 12, 2018 2:11 PM in response to Zarquon42

You do not understand screen resolution. It varies for all screens, it is only relative.

Also you are putting blind faith in your scanner actually scanning at 100% size, like the screen resolution that varies.

See my above suggested workflow.

Peter

Reply

Answer 14

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

112 points

Jan 12, 2018 2:13 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

You do not understand screen resolution. It varies for all screens, it is only relative.

See my above suggested workflow.

Peter

That's why I said "At 128 ppi." Unless I am seriously misunderstanding something, this should be true for all Mac screens at that resolution.

Reply

Answer 15

Zarquon42 Author

Level 1

112 points

Jan 12, 2018 2:21 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

PeterBreis0807 wrote:

See my refresh. Pixels have no fixed size, they can be large and they can be small on the screen.

Peter

Um…you'll have to back that one up. If pixels can be of arbitrary size, Apple's boasts of how many pixels its various devices have would seem to be meaningless.

Reply