PDF Problems

[PooFlingingApe]

Because of the disappointing quality of the rulebooks I opted to buy the PDF books with the intention of having them professionally printed.

Well, I went to a couple of Print Shops, and because of the size of the document(page size, not count) I am looking at almost $50.00 for each book.
That is for a simple single sided, ring bound document.

One of the Print Shops told me if I could get the pages to a regular letter size (8.5 x 11) instead of the tabloid size, the price would go down to about $9.00 each.

I am not all that savvy with publishing. If anyone here knows how to this, an explanation would be appreciated.

 

[stryve]

Most print shops I've dealt with will print to whatever size you tell them to. So just say you want the document scaled to fit 8.5x11, and they ought to be able to take care of the rest. If they can't, you probably don't want to use them, anyway.
Even if you're printing on your own, it's still relatively simple. The specifics may vary depending on what program you're using, but the basics are as follows:
Always use File->Print, so you can adjust the properties before printing.
Set page range to 'All' unless you only want to print a few pages, in which case enter said pages (ei. pages 2- 15).
Set page scaling to 'fit media', or 'reduce to printer margins', or similar.
Make certain print size is set to 8.5x11.
Make certain you are attempting to print to the correct printer.
If you think there's a problem, ask for assistance before printing anything.

Hope this helps!

 

[Burger]

It does seem a bit strange that a print shop doesn't know how to use the basic functionality of their product!

 

[Skipper]

While we are talking PDF books, is there a simple way to print the rules without the watermark illustration in the background. I've found it makes reading the rules difficult, especially in low light areas like our normal gaming store.

Skipper

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

if the text is rendered in a plain text format inside the PDF, you can likely copy and paste it into a new document. In Acrobat, click on edit and select all, then edit again and copy. Open word or notepad or whatever, and paste. format the text as you please and print.

 

[H]

there seems to be a worrying trend with printers, that they can't deal with what even you or I could.
i recently sent some work to be published as a jpeg, simple stuff eh? they said they didn't have the software to open it, could i re-send as PDF?! go figure.
they were also unable to do things that I myself can do in photoshop, (which was a pain as I don't have access to photoshop in work!) I had to do basic colouring and redesign in a map creating piece of software all because they didn;t ahve the ability to re-colour something from blue to yellow

 

[Chernobyl]

The last time I took a 40+ page word document in to be printed, the shop charged me an extra couple bucks to convert it to PDF first.

Chern

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

i recently sent some work to be published as a jpeg, simple stuff eh? they said they didn't have the software to open it, could i re-send as PDF?! go figure.

Can't open a JPEG!!!! WTF are the they using? Mouse driven desktops with only MS-DOS to operate on?

It seems to me like more and more places want to charge the earth; and have you do half of the work for them.

 

[PooFlingingApe]

The problem is, that there are no longer any actual locally run print shops in the area. Only the ones in the major chain stores.

They will print it to whatever size I choose, but they charge based on the size of the document.

 

[stryve]

They charge based on the document's native print size? Am I misunderstanding, here? Because that makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

This is why I take advantage of the printers in work. It also helps that I'm the guy in charge of them, but still.

 

[PooFlingingApe]

They charge based on the document's native print size? Am I misunderstanding, here? Because that makes no sense whatsoever.

When the first place I went to told me this I thought the clerk didn't feel like dealing with me and was just trying to get me out of the store.

I was Absolutely shocked when the second and third places told me the same.

 

[stryve]

Huh. What chain is this? Just so I can never, ever use them.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Alternatively, go in with an A6 document, and ask for it to be printed as A1...

 

[Burger]

Alternatively, go in with an A6 document, and ask for it to be printed as A1...

Yeah - shrink the PDF down so it all fit on one A4 page... then ask for it to be printed HUGE... then cut the pages apart, stick em together Entire book for the price of 1 page!