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Printing PDF
#33663 04/01/15 06:12 PM
Joined: Sep 2009
deniro Offline OP
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I have a PDF of a menu from a restaurant, but the type is too small. I want to print w/more readable type.

I enlarge it in Preview, but when I print nothing changes. Still small type.

So then I tried the Printer settings, where I have two choices:
1) Scale __%
2) Scale to Fit/Print Entire Image
2a) Fill Entire Paper.

That last option helps, but not much. I want to be able to enlarge the text so it is more readable. But that will break up the PDF's "desire" to keep the file to two pages. If I enlarge the text, I will need more than two pages. I tried adjusting Scale to 200% in the print settings, but it didn't change the size of the type. Tried 30% on a whim. Nope.

How do I enlarge the type size?

Perhaps convert it to a word processing file?

Last edited by deniro; 04/01/15 06:15 PM.
Re: Printing PDF
deniro #33665 04/01/15 06:48 PM
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it sounds like you just want to make the font of the text larger, without increasing the actual size of the document?

if you just need to reprint it, try select-all, copy, and go into a word processor like textedit or MS Word (or even create a new email) and paste there, then try selecting the text and changing the font size.


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Re: Printing PDF
Virtual1 #33670 04/01/15 10:00 PM
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Then the formatting is lost. I tried Pages, TextEdit, and Tex-Edit Plus.

Re: Printing PDF
deniro #33681 04/02/15 11:52 AM
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Originally Posted By: deniro
Then the formatting is lost. I tried Pages, TextEdit, and Tex-Edit Plus.


can you post a link and specify the text you are trying to change, and what you're trying to change it to?


I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
Re: Printing PDF
Virtual1 #33683 04/02/15 03:53 PM
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deniro Offline OP
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It's true of all pdfs. The pages are set unless you have a program that can extract the text. I don't think it can be done without one of the more expensive Adobe programs.

Edit: I'll google extracting text.

Last edited by deniro; 04/02/15 03:53 PM.
Re: Printing PDF
deniro #33684 04/02/15 04:06 PM
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First you have to realize that most PDFs like restaurant menus on the internet are not text, rather they are an image like a JPG, or GIF. As an image it is easily scaleable, but you scale the entire image and lose all the automatic page wrapping. It is like zooming in. If you have a trackpad, almost any application in OS X will do that quite nicely using gestures. (Spread the thumb and forefinger apart on the trackpad to zoom in or squeeze the together to zoom out.) That is exactly what I do when the text of a page is too small no matter what format it is in.

If you want the formatting, line wrapping etc to adapt to the larger font size that is a very different thing altogether. There is no automatic formatting like line wrapping in PDF. However, there are applications that can convert PDF to Word format, but first the PDF image has to be OCRed (Optical Character Recognition) to convert it from an image to actual selectable/searchable text. Only then it can be converted to Word or other formats. There are a number of apps in the App Store that do both, at a wide range in cost, and equally wide range of success. Personally I use PDF Pen Pro (~$99) but PDF Pen (~$49) should do what you want unless you want to create PDF forms. You should look at the other App store offerings, read the ratings, consult your bank balance grin , and make your own choice.


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Re: Printing PDF
joemikeb #33685 04/02/15 04:19 PM
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if the formatting "got lost" when pasted into a text editor, that suggests that the text was copied, not an image. copied images don't lose their format wink


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Re: Printing PDF
joemikeb #33687 04/02/15 07:30 PM
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In line with joemikeb's comments, re text ...

If you've got Adobe Acrobat X, open your PDF file using same.
Go to File > Save As and in the drop-down menu you'll find that you can save it in Microsoft Word and a plethora of other options. Than you can manipulate the document to your heart's content.

Re: Printing PDF
grelber #33690 04/02/15 08:13 PM
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deniro Offline OP
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I forgot I had an old version Abby Fine Reader on my Mac. Copyright says 2009, version 8. I don't even remember why I have it or where I got it. I used OCR technology before in the early 00s. Very cool.

I ran it and tried to convert the pdf to text but the program quit each time.

I understand that the menu text is actually a graphic file.

Re: Printing PDF
deniro #33691 04/02/15 08:31 PM
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deniro Offline OP
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I did some experimenting. Had to solve this.

Preview can save the .pdf as a jpg. Fine Reader converted the .jpg to .rtfd which I then opened in Pages. I'm able to alter the document in Pages. Cool. Let's see if I can get the result I want.

You can also do this with NeoOffice, which is what I tried first. NeoOffice allowed me to select each item on the .pdf and, say, delete it. I assume I could've done this in Preview. This means I can save only the text I want, without any of the other images, large headlines and so on. In NeoOffice I can save as or export to many different formats.


Last edited by deniro; 04/02/15 08:32 PM.

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