Home Forums Mac Software Mac Applications Getting from Word to PDF

My daughter has a business website and, on one page, she advertises events that she hosts. She wants to simplify the process of inserting the advertising information (now done in a CMS) by uploading a PDF. The CMS does not give her sufficient flexibility in the layout.

The space available would be a fixed number of pixels wide by whatever length is required.

The original layout would be done in Word. Layout would include text of various sizes, fonts and colours, some graphics and sometimes a multi-column numeric table.

What's the best route to get from a Word document to a PDF, in a specified width measured in pixels, conserving as much crispness and colour reciprocity as possible?

ryck

This is a tough one. Neither Word nor Acrobat Distiller measure in pixels. There is another app, PDF stats that can measure in pixels, but looks like it may complicate the issue. I can think only about two scenarios. In the first, one can make a pdf from Word trying to make the text/pictures small enough so that could be inserted into a web page. Then somehow crop if need be in the web editor (I am not sure if this is possible).
Another possible way could be to make a pdf in a regular way, then import it into Photoshop through the "Place" command under File. First, select "new" under file and you will see the size in pixels, so you can put the numbers you want including resolution. Then hit place, select your pdf and hit "open". The pdf contents is now placed as a layer (double click within the grid to actually place the contents) and one can manipulate this layer, crop, change color, etc., and eventually flatten it. Since it is now an image, and a high-res one, you can save it as a jpeg and insert into the web page layout. The file size can be controlled by jpeg save option from 1 to 12. Looks like it is tedious but it will preserve all formatting, fonts, and colors of the original.
Can one just copy the contents of a Word page and paste them into a web layout? Or everything would change?

I think everything would change. One of our problems has been that the CMS hasn't proven overly stable and the difficulties have become more acute with Safari 4.0.3.

Is there an easier method if we were able to specify width in inches?

Re: "Another possible way could be to make a pdf in a regular way..."

I actually don't even know what the regular way is, never having made a PDF. Also I don't have Photoshop.

Just a thought....and I need some educating here....is it more logical if the website could accept a JPEG? Are a PDF and a JPEG structurally similar enough that one could be used in place of another?

If that was the case...and I'm reaching.... I was thinking that a simple conversion from Word to PDF would be to take a screenshot of the Word document using the Grab utility and then convert the TIFF to JPEG. The drawback would be if my daughter had a document that was taller than my screen when opened. (I have a 20" G5). It's not likely but the possibility is always there.

ryck

Too bad you have no Photoshop. I would think that an image is easier to handle in a web page than a pdf. What you can do, is to create pdf file from Word and open it in Preview. There you can get an image, etc. and save in an image format. However, I doubt that your dimensions would be measurable in pixels. This is no way near Photoshop but it might work. Give it a shot.
The regular way of making a pdf from Word is to use the built-in PDF converter. This is in the print menu. When you hit Print... in Word, a menu opens up and in the bottom left there is an option "PDF". In the drop-down menu select "save as PDF" and go. If your outputs are too large, you might like to download a free utility "Compress PDF Workflow" (I am not sure whether it is in 10.6 by default because it was there in 10.4 and was killed in 10.5). The utility will put the option of compression into the menu and this way, the file size will be reduced without much compromise on the resolution.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/compresspdfworkflow.html

The long time Macintosh graphic standby Graphic Converter X handles PDFs nicely and can size an image in pixels or inches and even better is a LOT cheaper than Photoshop. If you want something even less expensive take a look at the open source graphic editor Gimp which is free. IMO GIMP is an acquired taste but the price is right and it will do almost anything Photoshop can do.

That's a very good possibility. Is GC free? I have not updated it for a long time. So, Joe, you think Preview would be worse or still OK?

Graphic Converter X is definitely not free it costs $35 which IMO is a steal for what you get. It is definitely superior to Preview for what the OP is trying to accomplish but it is worth having around if for no other reason that its ability to import over 200 graphic formats and export images in over 80 formats. Among its editing bag of tricks GC offers web optimization for any of the web image formats. It can do all of this individually or it can batch process any number of images.

Should anyone wonder, I hasten to add that I have no relationship with Lemkesoft whatsoever other than being a long time satisfied user.

You could get it up on the screen and use the screencapture to grab a rectangle. That can be set to capture as tiff which is about as crisp as it gets. It displays width and height as you drag so you can nail it to the pixel both ways. Cmd-shift-4 to start, then drag your rectangle.

Some apps like snapz pro iirc can be set to grab specific sizes of rectangles, where you drag the rect where you want it and click.

Thanks everyone for a bunch of good ideas. I'll now go away for a couple of days, see what I can do, and report what happens.

By the way, joemike, I'm a bit red-faced about the Graphic Converter recommendation. I had actually bought it a few years ago for something or other and forgot I had it. Nice group, Lemke, they immediately let me know I needed to upgrade and there wasn't even a cost.

ryck

Thanks, good to know. Hope that GC evolved to the better over the years. Tried it first in late nineties, I guess and it was pretty shabby. Photoshop is more basic about formats but has all those that I need to use.