Is there a way of making a pdf printed from Rhino use the actual size option on the recipients printer?

Hi,
V5
I am using PDF24 Creator (sheep icon) to create the pdf when selecting print and that print option as my target.

If the recipient of my pdf’s forgets my instruction to select ‘ACTUAL SIZE’, printers seem to be defaulted to ‘FIT’ and consequently the plan is not as I intended and smaller than 1:1.

I have emailed PDF24 on this but got no reply. Can one open pdf’s online, alter the settings and force the printer to use ‘ACTUAL SIZE’ ?

Any free progs that will do so ?

Steve

Steve -

There is nothing in a PDF file that instructs the application that is used to open the file how to print it.
For the same PDF file that I open in Microsoft Edge and Adobe Acrobat Reader, both offer different default settings for printing to a physical printer. This is completely in the hands of the recipient.
-wim

Ok,

Thats a shame, one can go to a lot of work and have user mess it up.
The default seems to be shrink it (fit)

Steve

That’s why you don’t scale drawings. Presumably people printing out drawings in a shop know to try to not scale them, but you have no idea from the dozens of applications that can print PDFs what the “defaults” are.

Its horses for courses, I supply plans fully dimensioned for those that work to dims, I also supply scale drawings for those that need to lay out the plan, and will fashion something up by laying it to the plan, they dont work to drawings, the thing they are making doesnt need such, a few years ago I created a full sized A0 sheet of a pump compartment where the ‘old boy’ laid items on plan to fabricate, its how he was, to match the radius of the corner bends he wasnt going to get paper and a compass, not his way.
On this occasion I have small parts as 1:1, take printout to a shop, offer up items from shelf to see if its near enough to do, I also have plans not needing 1:1 as they would need a massive sheet of paper.

Another example… client needs to roll a sheet of wood into a sloping ended cylinder, If I send an actual size plan made from UnrollSrf he can trace the wavy curve, cut and roll and job done, else he has to get set square, draw datums, draw lines every half inch for more detail or maybe 1inch where not so critical, measure the distance I indicate along each line, then get a french curve or spline and plot the sine wave, he wont be doing that ! It also means I have to draw it all out to supply those lined and dims.

Steve

Hi @Steve1,

Actually you can set the default.

If you have Acrobat Pro (and possibly other tools that allow editing of PDFs) then load the file and go to File | Properties | Advanced. Then in Print Dialog Presets change the Page Scaling option to None. Then save the file.

That makes the default print option Actual Size. Whether all PDF tools and printer drivers respect that I have no idea. There is of course nothing to stop someone overriding the setting.

HTH
Jeremy

Hi Jeremy,
thats great news.
Acrobat pro means spending money just for that , so either I hope PDF24 get back to me or I will need to find an online method.

Cheers

Steve

That’s the sort of feature that obviously you’re going to have to pay actual money for if it’s that important to you. Anyone who’s really serious about working with PDFs such that they would want such a feature(because they’re in the actual printing business) uses Acrobat, everything else is just kind of a toy. Have a little faith that the people printing this out knowing it’s supposed to be scaled know to set that properly.

Not sure if Acrobat is subs, I never have need of it, until now.
If I am forced to go subs on Pshop with win10 perhaps they bundle Acrobat, probably not though.
…nope its £15 a month and Pshop/lightroom £10/month.

saved myself £1000 by sticking to CS9 up till now, does everything I ever need, so Acrobat Pro for usage probably 3 or 4 times a year , I think not.

hate subs, assumes one is making money and using it for paying clients, I am not.

Does anyone know of an online safe pdf editor free to alter default to page Scaling Option None ?

Steve

Typically anything relating to security or overriding defaults is a Pro only feature.
The “security” restrictions I suspect are a ploy to force buying Pro.
PDF is a public format, but only some of the total PDF functions are “public”. Go figure, that seems a logic fail.

I pay for their Creative Cloud subscription because its far less aggravating than to continually have to look for work arounds that don’t exist and never will. Acrobat is a good example of why any sane person would pay every month. You can keep hoping that one of the “cheap” alternatives will actually do what you want.
Access to “Security” related function only exist in Pro and cannot be accessed by third party developers.
Its been this way since the 2000s that im aware of (and probably before) and its not going to change.

Thanks for that, Jeremy!
I’ve put this on the list as RH-64291 so that someone can take a closer look at what is possible here.
-wim

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