PDF XChange Forum

Searching the forum I found the word "crop" only in the "PDF-Viewer-Forum", but ...

is it possible to crop while creating the PDF?

The reason why I need this feature is that I produce with AutoCAD a large number of large-format-prints: Starting from 800 mm to 4000 mm width and 300 - 900 mm height. I need a feature where

- I use a standard paper 5000 x 1000 mm
- create PDF on it
- crop it with a configurable margin to "printed area" (for example: "exactly on printed area / printed area + 5 mm / printed area + 10 mm"

Is it possible within the driver?

Regards

Peter

Hello Peter,

This is a feature that should be controlled by the printing application not the driver that is outputting what is sent to it.
The settings for the driver are to scale the content when it does not fit on the sheet (or you want it "zoomed") but this crop should be done prior to sending the work for printing - this way you will see the result before printing it, while setting some margin (e.g. 5, 10 mm) might result in an unacceptable product, and would require recreation.

I do not believe this is a suitable feature for a printing driver.

Best,
Stefan

Tracker Supp-Stefan wrote:...The settings for the driver are to scale the content when it does not fit on the sheet (or you want it "zoomed") ....

The best idea would be the opposite of the curretn feature ..
Now you have (in nearly all printer drivers) a "Scale content to paper size".
The new feature should be "Scale paper size to content".

Tracker Supp-Stefan wrote:...but this crop should be done prior to sending the work for printing - this way you will see the result before printing it, while setting some margin (e.g. 5, 10 mm) might result in an unacceptable product, and would require recreation....

There are some cropping features out there in internet, and they seem to work fine.

Why do I need this feature? (and of course all other CAD-guys too)

As described above there is a problem if the user leaves the content of standard-paper-size (large-format-printing), for example if he has drawings larger then "DIN A0" or "DIN A1". What can he do?

Using old Postscript-drivers he has one (1!) "custom defined paper". For every print he has to change the paper-size.
Using old HP HPGL-Printers he had five (5!) user-defined-sizes.
Using a new HP-driver or PDFXChange there are endless (really??) definitions of paper-sizes. But it is not funny to define (4000 - 800 = 3200 mm; 3200/50mm per Step = 64 steps in width; 300-450-600-750-900 mm = 5 steps in height) 64 * 5 = 320 different paper sizes and to use them. This is not a useful solution ...

AND: Many print-jobs are made by internal scripts (or internal batch jobs). So have to to find the real extensions of your drawing (no problem), group them in 320 possibilities of user-defined-papers and select the right paper-size ...
Not funny either ...

So, again:
Why not adding a feature "Define paper-size depending on size of drawing plus user-defined margins?"

(Adobe Acrobat has a kind of this feature in its print-dialogue: "Select paper depending on content". You could expand it: select the paper AND define it automatically if it is not already defined)

Regards

Peter

Thanks for the input - we will take all the above into consideration as we prepare the V5 release over the coming weeks and will do what can be reasonabley done...

Thanks

John - Tracker Supp wrote:...we will take all the above into consideration as we prepare the V5 release over the coming weeks and will do what can be reasonabley done...

Fine. Thanks.

Peter

John - Tracker Supp wrote: ↑Wed Dec 15, 2010 6:45 pm Thanks for the input - we will take all the above into consideration as we prepare the V5 release over the coming weeks and will do what can be reasonabley done...

Thanks

Hi all
I was (I am ...) away from PDF-XChange for some years now, so my knowledge of all the features is currently not up-to-date. So please, can you tell me if there is now a feature as discussed above?

Regards

Peter

Hello Peter,

This functionality is entirely dependent on the application you are printing from. As our printer receives the data from each application and then converts it to the PDF format, as a printer it does not have the liberty to discern white space from other objects, it simply takes the input and works with what it is given (and on the medium, or paper size, it is told to use). To ensure there is minimal white space when printing simply set the application that is printing to our printer to zero margins. Beyond that, in many cases the printing application offers a "Choose paper size based on content" option. If this is selected with our printer, the paper size should as you desire be selected based on the content, but again it is dependent on the application you are printing from.
If after converting to PDF you still see a little white space, you can always open the document and use the Crop function on the organize tab of our PDF-XChange Editor to remove the remaining white space.

I hope this helps!

Thanks Daniel.