Printing GURPS PDF files with Adobe Reader

[panton41]

Considering you're probably going to a copy shop to bind them anyway, why not ask if they'll trim the edge for you?

[The Benj]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

Considering you're probably going to a copy shop to bind them anyway, why not ask if they'll trim the edge for you?

I'm not. I just staple them.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by lachimba

The only problems I ever have are with 3E PDFs. Sometimes the text goes to close to the edge so I have to whole punch through it

I think that happened to me a bit, too, in some degree.

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Try finding some Letter-sized paper! Also keep in mind that some printers cannot print very close to the bottom margin, so even printing at actual size may cut off a little of the bottom—which is why Adobe Reader defaults to shrinking to fit the margins.

I'm going to think about this, despite I believe it's going to be difficult to get Letter-sized paper at a reasonable cost in Spain. We'll see!

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

Considering you're probably going to a copy shop to bind them anyway, why not ask if they'll trim the edge for you?

I bind them myself, but your suggestion is useful anyway.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Well, I personally print them with "Page Scaling: None", and they end up ok. of course, I spiral bind them, and I don't care much for the fact that the bottom of the page has a white bar

You know, if you print from Foxit Reader at "Actual Size" (equivalent to "Page Scaling: None" in Adobe), it centers correctly the pages and so the upper and lower margins are balanced. If you care about that, of course ;^)

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

The print problem is due to Letter v's A4 but that's life.
I just let my printers run on their default for Adobe - any adjustments I attempt make it worse.
Using Letter sized paper would help but AFAIC the only way to get proper hardcopy is to buy it. I'm happy with my sloppy prints - abuse/editing don't affect the master copy:)

So, I imagine you print your GURPS PDF pages at a size of 96%. That is, I believe, the default mode for Acrobat Reader -at least concerning A4 sheets.

Regarding further adjustments worsening things, I find printing at 100% size ("Page Scaling: None") from Adobe Reader makes the low margin larger and more noticeable than just printing at 96% ("Page Scaling: Adjust to printing area").

Thank you for so many and helpful answers. Nice to see how different people is making their own GURPS e23 printings.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

You know, if you print from Foxit Reader at "Actual Size" (equivalent to "Page Scaling: None" in Adobe), it centers correctly the pages and so the upper and lower margins are balanced. If you care about that, of course ;^)

Well, I'll try it. The problem is that I print mine at the university, and AFAIK, they don't have foxit installed. i'll have to print to PDF and then print that PDF. We will see how it ends!

Also, my home computer runs on Linux, and Evince/Okular are far superior PDF readers to both foxit and Acrobat Reader, and they both allow me to print with balanced margins.

[Bruno]

One option, a bit brute force, would be to open the PDF in the GIMP and resize the canvas (page area) to A4 proportions - doing it manually like this would give you complete control of how it handles centering and margin balance.

A better option would be to use a proper PDF editor - I'm still looking for one for Windows that's decent and FOSS though. I'm lucky enough to have access to Adobe Acrobat (full suite) at work.

[demonsbane]

My quest for Letter sheets in Spain has been a failure.

Nobody seems to know about such format around here, and shops aren't distributing unavailable/unknown stuff for them. So, I have to remain with the A4 format.

Originally Posted by Bruno

One option, a bit brute force, would be to open the PDF in the GIMP and resize the canvas (page area) to A4

It could work, although I'm not comfortable with the procedure. Thank you anyway.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Well, I'll try it. (...) We will see how it ends!

Tell us. I remain interested about how people is printing their GURPS releases.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Also, my home computer runs on Linux, and Evince/Okular are far superior PDF readers to both foxit and Acrobat Reader, and they both allow me to print with balanced margins.

Interesting. I don't know such software, but I'm not a Linux user. I wonder if some of these PDF readers you are mentioning are available for Win7, and in what sense they are superior to Foxit Reader.

[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

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Interesting. I don't know such software, but I'm not a Linux user. I wonder if some of these PDF readers you are mentioning are available for Win7, and in what sense they are superior to Foxit Reader.

Well, for one they're faster, at least when compared to Linux versions of both Adobe Acrobat Reader and Foxit Reader. Okular in particular is quite feature rich, without sacrificing speed, while Evince just works and has a very simple interface. For the rest, I found Foxit's interface to be clumsy, and both Evince and Okular give me better rendering results than it (Sometimes, gradients don't show properly in Foxit in my experience, for example)

Oh, and free with no adds is a big plus (on top of them being free as in freedom)

[panton41]

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

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.

[Bruno]

Notably, Evince has a Windows installer, although Okular does not (as far as I can tell)