Question about Merge Pages-Feature

[HaPe]

Hello,
Splitting a page and merging the split pages afterwards to a new page doesn't keep the aspect ratio of some contents
like pictures,whereas the contents of a textbox looks fine.Is there any way/setting to avoid this?
I did try various options but to no avail.
I attached 2 files to show this behavior.Each file contains 4 pages:
The original page, the original page split in 2 pages and the new page after merging the split pages.

HaPe

[Willy Van Nuffel]

I have run a short test with PDF-XChange Editor V7 build 326.1

Splitting up (for example) an A4 portrait page in two half landscape pages is not a problem.

But, merging these two half pages back together to one single page does not work for me, in no way ...

Best regards.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the posts - I've just tested here with the samples provided, and both splitting and merging working perfectly for me: The pages are exactly the same length/width & layout as they were before, and all content on the page is also identical to the original.

Can you please upload screen-shots that show both your Split & your Merge settings?

Thanks,

[HaPe]

Can you please upload screen-shots that show both your Split & your Merge settings?

Thanks,

Hi Will,
thanks for looking into this.
Please watch the video I just created and uploaded:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od7dyg4 ... e=youtu.be
Make sure you watch it in "HD" otherwise it might be blurry.....
In my previous posting I forgot to mention that I use the latest version of PDFXchange v326.1

Also thanks to Willy for taking a look at my problem !

HaPe

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi HaPe,

Thanks for that - I think I see what might be wrong here. Please copy these settings and see if that helps:


(Ignore the preview - I just opened the dialog without first splitting the pages, to show my previous settings)

Thanks,

[HaPe]

Thanks for that - I think I see what might be wrong here. Please copy these settings and see if that helps:

Hi Will,
I am at loss but I can't make it work.There was one setting in the video that was wrong by mistake.
Instead "vertical page order" I used "horizontal page order" because I was
trying all kind of settings and forgot to switch it back.But no matter what setting I use (I also tried your settings)
the aspect ratio is not right which can sometimes result in almost unreadable text information
when splitting very long converted webpages.
For the time being I have to take a deep breath and try again later in the day,as I am inclined to often miss this and that.....

HaPe

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi HaPe,

That's really bizarre. When you get the time, can you export your settings (File --> Manage Settings) and upload them here, or send them to support@pdf-xchange.com with a link back to this topic? I'd like to test here with your setup.

Thanks,

[HaPe]

I'd like to test here with your setup.

Hi Will,
I uploaded another video and also exported the settings.
Please check the video if the settings I used are really the same as yours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWjux_Z ... e=youtu.be

HaPe - I am off now seeing the doctor,but not because of this ....

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Hello,

I think I see what is going wrong.

When the two half pages (210 mm x 148,5 mm) are merged, the horizontal scaling is incorrect. It is only half as width as it should be.

Currently, to work-around this problem, you can run a "Merge Pages" to a destination page that is half as width as it should be (105 mm x 297 mm).

After this, run a "Resize Pages", where you set the final page-size to A4 (210 mm x 297 mm), and un-check the "Keep content aspect ratio".

There is no loss of quality of the pictures, the number of pixels stays the same, it is only the scaling that was wrong.

Best regards.

[HaPe]

When the two half pages (210 mm x 148,5 mm) are merged, the horizontal scaling is incorrect. It is only half as width as it should be.
Currently, to work-around this problem, you can run a "Merge Pages" to a destination page that is half as width as it should be (105 mm x 297 mm).
After this, run a "Resize Pages", where you set the final page-size to A4 (210 mm x 297 mm), and un-check the "Keep content aspect ratio".

Hi Willy,
yes ,this works - at least when it comes to my examples (just split once and merge without changing the length/width of the pdf-file).
But my real intention is to split a single page into several pages and then delete some of the pages that contain
useless information (advertisements etc...)After that I want to merge the leftover pages back into a single page which then will also
be shorter.
I tried this with your workaround and taking into account the new length. But again I encountered similar problems.
(It's midnight and I am tired-chances are that I might have chosen wrong settings or didn't do the math properly...)
It still baffles me that @Will couldn't reproduce the problem on his machine.
Maybe there is something really wrong with my settings.I'll just wait and see what Tracker finds out.
Apart from this issue,using the split and merge features in a "normal" way works perfectly !

Thank you Willy for taking part in the discussion and also a big thank you to Tracker Support for never letting user in the lurch.

HaPe

[Willy Van Nuffel]

I suppose the origin of the question is to have a full-document PDF editor, not only a page-per-page PDF editor.

At my opinion, this kind of "editing" has never been the intention of the PDF-format.
The PDF-format was meant to be universal format that was readable via a free viewer all over the world, on different platforms (Windows, Mac, ...). What you see via PDF is what you get when printed, or vice-versa.

Nowadays, people are trying to edit PDF's like they do with Word-documents. That should not be the goal.

Most document-editors (like Microsoft Word) are not for free, but are the most appropriate programs for editing documents.

I do not know how far Tracker Software is willing to go in incorporating more and more editing features in their PDF-XChange Editor.
Will it become a word-processor in the end ?

If not, then I would rather propose to HaPe to opt for another program when real document editing is required.
PDF-XChange Editor can convert PDF's to Microsoft Word documents. Microsoft Word 2016 can open PDF's directly without problem.

Best regards.

[HaPe]

Will it become a word-processor in the end ?

Hi Willy,
I totally agree with your response !
It is not my intention to see PDF Xchange turn into a word processor.It is already such a feature rich
application that am still amazed how they can make it work almost perfectly given all the complexity it involves.
I was actually just waiting for a response to my last posting to let Tracker Support know,that I
don't want to make a big deal out of it and I am happy to have a split and merge feature that
already works perfectly if I use it the "normal" way.
I have to admit that my approach to split and merge is a bit unusual and - just guessing - not even part of
any PDF-specifications.

HaPe

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi guys,

The issue here appears to be that during the split, you're using this:


Please use this intead:


During the merge, both of these work perfectly for me:

Preferred


Manual


Cheers,

[HaPe]

The issue here appears to be that during the split, you're using this:
Cheers,

Oh man - this does work !
I just did a test with a "long" pdf-page.Split it in different pages ,deleted pages
and merged the leftover ones back into one page.Excellent!
It works exactly the way I wanted it.
Never thought that before merging pages the split procedure had to be taken into account too (at least in some cases)...
I am little bit embarrassed but then on the other hand there are so many options that one can easily overlook important settings

Thanks Will !

HaPe

[Will - Tracker Supp]

No worries HaPe! I'm glad that did the trick In all honesty, I'm not sure why it needs to be done this way. I suspect that it has something to do with redefining what's visible, vs. actually 'cutting' the pages. I'll double check with the dev. team when I can, but for now it appears best to use this.

Cheers,