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Q: Editing PDF documents ( Answered,   0 Comments )
Question  
Subject: Editing PDF documents
Category: Computers > Software
Asked by: top19-ga
List Price: $25.00
Posted: 29 Oct 2006 12:06 PST
Expires: 28 Nov 2006 12:06 PST
Question ID: 778181
I have Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional Edition. I'm trying to reformat
documents from 8 1/2 by 11 to something smaller, so as to fit them on
my Sony Ereader (im following the recommendation from the Sony site
"www.learningcenter.sony.us/assets/itpd/reader/") How would I do this?
Alternatively you can tell me how to edit my pdf documents in such a
way that they are easier to read on the ereader.

Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 29 Oct 2006 12:57 PST
top19...

I found the page you were referring to. While reformatting your
PDF files to make them easier to read on the reader is one option
they mention, it seems the easier option would be their other
recommendation: "We recommend using the CONNECT Reader Software
to import and transfer files to the Reader, as it will enable
faster page turns and re-sizing on the Reader itself".

Is this not a viable option for you?

sublime1-ga

Clarification of Question by top19-ga on 29 Oct 2006 14:00 PST
No. What that means is essentially that the reader will shrink the
document down to fit the screen, of course this makes the text barely
legible. Im talking about reformatting it on the computer to a smaller
page size and then transferring it to the reader, improving the
quality of the pdf document.

Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 29 Oct 2006 15:20 PST
top19...

Thanks for your clarification. I don't own a copy of Adobe Acrobat,
so I'm not personally familiar with it, but research shows the 
following:

You can use Adobe Acrobat's cropping function to resize the pages,
but this seems less than intuitive, per 'Appendix D' of this PDF
document:

"Pages must be cropped to 595x792 pt to ensure that they can be
 printed on A4 and US Letter paper. While it is possible to use
 cropping in Acrobat to resize the page, it is much easier to 
 use PitStop?s Global Change capabilities. Using Global Change
 will also ensure that all papers are cropped to exactly the same
 size."
http://epaper.kek.jp/jacow/Documents/PAC01-PM.pdf


PitStop, while making this an easier task, costs $599:
http://www.enfocus.com/buy.php?id=855

...but is free to download and try:
http://www.enfocus.com/download.php?id=855


The only other option I found is to resize them using the
Javascript Console built into Acrobat Pro. A tutorial on
the topic is found on the Adobe Acrobat User Community:
http://www.acrobatusers.com/tech_corners/javascript_corner/tips/2006/page_bounds/

...and points to this page about the Javascript Console:
http://www.acrobatusers.com/tech_corners/javascript_corner/tips/2006/javascript_console/index.php

So if you're willing to do the math and learn how to 
apply the sample code provided, this might be a viable
solution for you.


Let me know where this takes you...

sublime1-ga
Answer  
Subject: Re: Editing PDF documents
Answered By: aceresearcher-ga on 31 Oct 2006 06:15 PST
 
Greetings, top19!

I believe what you need **can** be done ? and for FREE ? however, it
may not turn out to be a trivial task.

Instructions can be found in your Acrobat 6.0 Help Manual.

In Acrobat, pull down the "Help" menu, and turn on the "How To"
window. Select "More topics".

Scroll to the bottom of the resulting list; under "Other Tasks", click
on "Structure a document for handheld Devices".

The Help manual then tells you that .pdf files must have a "tagged"
structure in order for them to appear correctly on the screen of a
handheld device.

Choose "Advanced --> Accessibility --> Add Tags to Document".

If the document is already tagged, you will receive an Error message,
otherwise, tags will be created based on the document's structure.

Then, I recommend "Save"ing this file under a new name, so that your
original is still available if the rest of this process doesn't work
properly.

Then pull down the "Help" menu and click on "Complete Acrobat 6.0 Help".

In the "Contents" tab, find "Publishing in electronic formats", and
explode it (click on the + in front of it).

Then click on "Preparing Documents to be viewed on a handheld". This
page and the ones which follow it will describe the process for
"reflowing" the document.
"1. On the status bar or in the View > Page Layout submenu, select
either Single Page or Continuous.
2. Choose View > Reflow." (source: Acrobat Help Manual)

Again, be sure to save this as a new document.

Bear in mind that your document may still require some "tweaking" to
appear properly on your Ereader. From the following page, "Editing the
reflow order of tagged Adobe PDF documents":
"Sometimes even tagged Adobe PDF documents may not reflow in the order
that you want. You can use the Content tab to change the order in
which elements reflow on a document page without actually changing the
author's contents or the information in the logical structure tree.
For example, you might want to change the reflow order so that a table
that ordinarily appears in the middle of a paragraph appears after the
paragraph when the document is reflowed.

To change the reflow order of elements on a page:
1. Click the Content tab in the navigation pane, or choose View >
Navigation Tabs > Content.
2. Click to expand the Content tab tree structure to find the element
you want to reflow in a different order.
3. Drag the element to your preferred position.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 to move any other elements you want to
rearrange.The order and position of the elements on the page changes
the next time you save and reflow the document."
(source: Acrobat Help Manual)

It may require some practice at first to get the hang of reflowing
your documents quickly so that they are nicely readable on your
handheld.

For further "tweaking" instructions, see the "Adding supplementary
information to tags" section, which appears in the Acrobat Help Manual
under "Building flexibility into Adobe PDF files".

Search Strategy:
actually working through the process in Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional


Before Rating this Answer, if you have any questions about the
information that I have presented, please post a Request for
Clarification, and I will be glad to see what I can do for you.

I hope that this Answer provides you with exactly the information
which you were seeking!

Regards,
aceresearcher

Request for Answer Clarification by top19-ga on 07 Nov 2006 16:38 PST
When I click on advanced options and go to add tags, it tells me this
document has already been tagged by another program. What can I do?

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 07 Nov 2006 17:01 PST
Thanks for requesting Clarification, top19.

Since the document has already been "tagged", go ahead with the rest
of the reflow procedures.

What tagging really does is set "access points" at the boundaries
betweeen paragraphs, sections, etc. So when the reflow is initiated,
it has a way to keep the text from being run all together as if the
whole document was one big paragraph (imagine how fun it would be to
try and read **that** on a handheld!!!).

Once you've finished the process, try the document out on your
handheld, and see how it looks.

Again, if you have a problem, please post a Request for Clarification,
and I will be glad to see what I can do for you.

Regards,
aceresearcher

Request for Answer Clarification by top19-ga on 12 Nov 2006 18:58 PST
I reflowed the document. On acrobat reader, the document is reflowed,
and pages are shrunk to fit the paragraphs (exactly what I wanted).
HOWEVER, after saving this document, and transfering it to my ereader,
it looks the exact same as before. Not one single difference!
Furthermore, I found this text in Adobe Acrobat Help: "As a document
author, you dont need to reflow your tagged Adobe PDF documents before
saving them and distributing them to your readers. In fact, Acrobat
and Adobe Reader don't save documents in a reflowed state. Instead
reflowing documents is done by your reader for viewing purposes only."

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 14 Nov 2006 00:03 PST
Thanks for requesting Clarification.

Can you be more specific as to exactly what about the appearance of
the document on your eReader's screen does not work for you? This will
help me determine the fix that will work for you.

Thanks,
aceresearcher

Request for Answer Clarification by top19-ga on 14 Nov 2006 09:28 PST
The text (when viewed on the reader) is too small.  It needs to be
enlarged. What about the possibility about cutting the pages in half
(making the document 400 instead of 200 pages) and then resizing those
half pages to full pages?

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 14 Nov 2006 14:46 PST
from the Sony eReader 
eSupport Knowledge Base:
Knowledge Article  C423257
Problem:
 The SonyŽ Reader does not increase the text size of PDF documents enough.

When displaying PDF documents, the Reader offers two sizing options,
small (S) or medium (M). These sizes are available in both orientation
options. If the PDF document is too small to be read in Vertical,
change the orientation to Horizontal to display the document.

NOTE: To change the orientation of the page, press and hold the SIZE
button until the screen orientation changes.

http://www.iq.sony.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=CISCV3,Company={46BFA530-E01F-4F7C-B98B-69C2AA06051B},Case=Obj(423257),TS=Externalv4,T=response_case.tem,VARSET_OBJ=423257,VARSET_TOP=TRUE,question=ref(QC):ord(1),question=ref(QB):ord(1)

Although this "Help" doesn't tell you so, the "Size" button is the
small button by itself on the left-hand side of the eReader.

I found this Help page by going to
http://www.learningcenter.sony.us/assets/itpd/reader

Click on "Support" in the upper right-hand corner, which opens up a
separate window:
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-home.pl?mdl=PRS500&LCID=LCTR_Showcase:ITPD:Reader:Home:btnSupport

Under "Hot Topics", I clicked on 
"The SonyŽ Reader does not increase the text size of PDF documents enough."

Please let me know if trying various combinations of "Size" and
"Orientation" enables you to get a readable document. Thanks for your
patience!

aceresearcher

Request for Answer Clarification by top19-ga on 21 Nov 2006 07:09 PST
The size button does nothing. The reader actually makes the pdf
document "smaller", so that it doesn't take up the whole screen (there
is a white border about 1cm in diameter that extends around the
document on the screen of the reader). When one presses the size
button, the pdf document is simply enlarged to fill the rest of the
screen that was left blank by the white border.

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 21 Nov 2006 17:12 PST
Thanks for your clarification. Sit tight for a bit, if you will, and
I'll do some more looking into this.

Thanks,
aceresearcher

Clarification of Answer by aceresearcher-ga on 29 Nov 2006 13:16 PST
Hi, top19,

I'm still working on getting some additional technical support for your situation.

Would it be possible for you to post digital photos of your eReader
with PDF document on the screen, using the "Size" button on the
largest available setting, in both horizontal and vertical formats? If
I can *see* what we've got to work with, it would greatly help in
choosing avenues for improvement.

If you don't have a webhosting space of your own through your ISP, you
can register and post photos for free at

http://www.flickr.com or

http://www.photobucket.com


Thanks,
aceresearcher
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