topic Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate in Documentation

PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Bruce — Fri, 19 May 2023 20:19:52 GMT

With the good ol' Amyuni converter, I could select multiple layouts in the layout book, then print them at 50%, all concatenated into the one file.

How do I do this with the new PDF converter?

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 05:36:09 GMT

I normaly use publisher and not print when publishing alot of drawings at the same time, it works much better for me.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Bruce — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:39:43 GMT

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not talking about publishing a whole set, but rather picking out individual layouts (for discussion, distribution to consultants etc).

Using the publisher is too much hassle in this regards - and it still doesn't allow you to shrink.

I'll keep using Amyuni, even though it's inferior quality, just because of this convenience factor.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Link — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:39:43 GMT

It's not as hard as you think.

When you create the Publisher Set, put everything in one folder and set the scale of that folder to whatever you want. Everything inside it will follow suit. Check the 'Merge to one PDF File'. Then when you want to publish particular items, just ctrl/cmd select each one and at the bottom of the Publisher, choose Publish selected items.

Set this up once in your template and you'll never have to mess with it again. Plus you get the latest PDF Converter.

Che

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Bruce — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:39:10 GMT

Thanks for that Link - can't figure out how to change the scale of the entire folder though.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Link — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:02:35 GMT

Ah, yes it looks like they have taken the Page Options... button out of AC12's Publisher. Sorry for misleading you there, but I hadn't noticed the omission.

I will have to ask GS about this.

Cheers,
Link.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Bruce — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:05:25 GMT

That has never been there when using the "Save" option in Publisher - only when printing or plotting. This is where one runs into trouble with the new pdf converter - if you could still use it as a print driver instead of having to save a pdf, it would still be sweet as.

Thanks anyway Link

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Link — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:12:21 GMT

Upon further inspection it looks like the Page Options and the Document Options are only available when publishing views. Plus the Document Options offer different things for views vs layouts. So I guess this has been a deliberate move by GS.

Still, I would like to get to the bottom of it. I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,
Link.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Thomas Holm — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:33:08 GMT

While AC12' config is logical, it might limit you if you've used some other print workflow previously.

To get at the output (printing) scale option in the Publisher, you'll have to select the Master layout settings and in the dialog's Size pop-up select the Import settings from printer option. There you have the scaling option.

Instead of duplicating masters this way, I find it easier to publish to a pdf set and scale that when printing from Adobe Reader or Preview.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

David Maudlin — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:43:29 GMT

Bruce:

On the Mac, you can select the desired layouts in the Navigator, set the page size under Page Setup..., then print to PDF with the Print... command and setting under the ArchiCAD option in the Print dialog box "Print Area: Selected Layouts in Navigator" and "Resize: Custom %". This creates one PDF file with the selected layouts at the % reduction. Do you have these options on the PC?

You should add a Signature to your Profile (click the Profile button near the top of this page) with your ArchiCAD version and operating system (see mine for an example) for more accurate help in this forum.

David

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Bruce — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:13:38 GMT

Thanks for your replies guys.

Thomas: you're quite right - duplicating Masters for a temporary purpose is not efficient, and double-printing a pdf to shrink it to size is doubling up on effort.

David: the problem with your suggestion is that this option is set with a printer driver...the new PDF converter is not a printer driver and ignores these settings.

I'll keep on using the Amyuni.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Djordje — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:39:59 GMT

Let's put the shoe on the other foot:

WHY would you want to shrink the PDFs?

If you do shrink them, they will become unreadable. So if anyone needs half size print of your big size PDF, that can be done while printing the PDF.

I might have missed the point, but still don't understand why shrink the PDF at all.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Thomas Holm — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:15:57 GMT

Djordje wrote:
Let's put the shoe on the other foot:

WHY would you want to shrink the PDFs?

If you do shrink them, they will become unreadable. So if anyone needs half size print of your big size PDF, that can be done while printing the PDF.

I might have missed the point, but still don't understand why shrink the PDF at all.

Djorde, for normal PDFs from Archicad, with vector content only, the PDFs generated are small and excellent.

But when they contain big bitmaps, like when the only existing site plan is a big scanned file, and you on top of that need to use it transparent, the PDFs may become unmanageably big if you need to email the layout book for the client to print, or if your printer doesn't like it. At least not all my clients have emailboxes that don't blink when they get emailed files in the range of 10MB or more.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Steve Jepson — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:21:39 GMT

Here. This will solve all of your documentaion problems with PDF converters. Use the Acrobat.

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=acrobat%5Fpro%5Fextended

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Thomas Holm — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:28:42 GMT

Steve,

I can't point to Acrobat from the Archicad Publisher.

On the other hand, since Nemetschek AG already has partnered with Adobe, I wouldn't be surprised if true Adobe PDF is already on it's way.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:32:30 GMT

Thomas wrote:
Djordje wrote:
Let's put the shoe on the other foot:

WHY would you want to shrink the PDFs?

If you do shrink them, they will become unreadable. So if anyone needs half size print of your big size PDF, that can be done while printing the PDF.

I might have missed the point, but still don't understand why shrink the PDF at all.
Djorde, for normal PDFs from Archicad, with vector content only, the PDFs generated are small and excellent.

But when they contain big bitmaps, like when the only existing site plan is a big scanned file, and you on top of that need to use it transparent, the PDFs may become unmanageably big if you need to email the layout book for the client to print, or if your printer doesn't like it. At least not all my clients have emailboxes that don't blink when they get emailed files in the range of 10MB or more.

I agree with Djorde. It's better to size the page in acrobat when final printing occurs and not when publishing from ArchiCAD.

File size can be dealt with after the fact with Acrobat Professional, or if files are still too large to email - with web delivery services like yousedit.com.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Bruce — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:37:36 GMT

Dom wrote:
I agree with Djorde. It's better to size the page in acrobat when final printing occurs and not when publishing from ArchiCAD.

File size can be dealt with after the fact with Acrobat Professional, or if files are still too large to email - with web delivery services like yousedit.com.

...except when your client wants them at 50% size...

I agree there are many ways to skin this cat, but I found that the Amyuni allowed for the most convenient way.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Djordje — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:56:39 GMT

Bruce wrote:
Dom wrote:
I agree with Djorde. It's better to size the page in acrobat when final printing occurs and not when publishing from ArchiCAD.

File size can be dealt with after the fact with Acrobat Professional, or if files are still too large to email - with web delivery services like yousedit.com.
...except when your client wants them at 50% size...

I agree there are many ways to skin this cat, but I found that the Amyuni allowed for the most convenient way.

Then print the PDF to PDF at 50%.

Re: PDF Shrink & Concatentate

Bruce — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:33:03 GMT

Djordje wrote:
Then print the PDF to PDF at 50%.

You haven't been following this thread, have you? My original post was to see if that could be done with the new PDF converter...which it can't.

The new PDF converter will only save to PDF - you require the Amyuni converter to print to PDF. Hence this discussion.