Printing GURPS PDF files with Adobe Reader

[The Benj]

Originally Posted by Lupo

Yes. You should get Acrobat Professional (not just the free Reader but the pdf 'creator'; any version, even an old one, will do); this would allow you to crop pages and/or save any given pdf as a series of .jpg (one jpg file for each page).

This way you could experiment with settings such as scaling and cropping, until you manage to create a "two A5 in each A4 page" .pdf file that satisfies you.

Unfortunately the only ways to acquire Acrobat Professional are either ridicolously expensive, or unlawful.

More unfortunately, that sounds like an awful lot of work for not much gain.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Lupo

Unfortunately the only ways to acquire Acrobat Professional are either ridicolously expensive, or unlawful.

I get it through my university, but last I heard Adobe was doing it on a trial basis and my school was the first they did it with. (Which is saying something about Indiana University.)

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by The Benj

More unfortunately, that sounds like an awful lot of work for not much gain.

Indeed . . . this turns into headaches.

Most likely I'm going to start printing my GURPS PDFs in standard A4 sheets -I can't get other formats- with Foxit Reader because it -unlike Adobe Acrobat- balances the upper and lower margins while prints at 100% size (that is, "Page Scaling: Actual Size").

I'm not completely sure, though, but this seems to me the simplest solution right now.

[Stormcrow]

Here's another idea. Why not print on A4, tell Adobe Reader to fit the content to the page, then use a paper trimmer to cut off the top and bottom margins? Sure, you'll have to print at around 95% of original size, but that's not all that bad.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Letter size paper is 8+1⁄2 × 11 in or 215.9 × 279.4 mm

You could go to a (not too big) print shop who do sheet-offset printing and ask them to cut paper to size.
As long as you ask for a decent quantity (at least a thousand sheets), they should do it without problem and probably on the spot. We would where i work, it would take less than 5 minutes...

Ask for laser/copier quality offset 80g , cut to 216 × 279 mm

Sheet-Offset printing paper is commonly purchased in 45(46)*64cm (SRA2), or multiples, so they can cut letter sized paper in it as well as a4 without loss.
(43*61, RA2 is less common. If your local printer use this, you would pay twice more for a letter sized than for an a4.)

You will likely pay a bit more than usual, but it should not be too expensive.

Celjabba

I just did this, following your detailed steps: I went to a local printer asking for this and they did cut the sheets in a few minutes.

After printing a bit, I can see this works fine for the GURPS PDFs, thanks! The printed pages look equal to the black and white GURPS POD releases.

I recommend this solution to other people around Europe mildy concerned about this issue of different paper standards.

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

For that matter, what about simply ordering a few reams of paper from the United States and only use it for SJ Games PDFs. It might be cheaper that having it cut to order, though I bet shipping will cost more than the paper itself.

I thought about that, too, but after seeing an online store from Germany that offers US Letter reams of paper (500 sheets for 10 € + shipping costs), I can see Celjabba's option is cheaper and more immediate (in my case, 500 sheets for 6,10 €, and 1000 sheets for 10,30 €).

Now, if you're going to put covers to these PDFs, like a transparent plastic sheet at the front and an opaque colored sheet in the back, you need to cut the required measure (216 × 279 mm) from plastic A3 sheet-covers, too. Even if they don't add anything to the cost for the required cutting, this part is more expensive because the average cost of each A3 cover is 0,70 €, and each book needs two of them (each A4 cover sheet costs around 0,40 €).

Thank you all for your helpful suggestions to this issue.


EDIT: Now printing with Adobe Reader gives the same results than printing with Foxit.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Here's another idea. Why not print on A4, tell Adobe Reader to fit the content to the page, then use a paper trimmer to cut off the top and bottom margins? Sure, you'll have to print at around 95% of original size, but that's not all that bad.

I think I'm going to do this for my already printed GURPS PDFs, which are at that 96% size. So I could "fix" them in some way. Now, I don't have a paper trimmer so I would need to go to a local printer for doing this.