Print by page size

Please post any ideas or requests for new features here for the End User Version of PDF-XChange (printer Drivers)

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Nemo
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Print by page size

Post by Nemo »

If you have a PDF which contains pages of differing sizes (A4, A3, A2 etc.) it would be useful to have a facility to print each page size separately so that you can load your printer with A4 paper and print the A4 pages, then load it with A3 paper and print the A3 pages and then maybe print the A2 pages on a different printer.

At the moment you have a Select Paper Size by Document's Page size option but that is of limited use because to use it you need a printer with two paper trays (or as many paper trays as there are different page sizes in the PDF). And even if you have a printer with the right number of trays capable of printing all the page sizes in the PDF you are not necessarily going to want to use that printer for all page sizes. For example you might have A4 pages containing mainly text which you want to print on a fast everyday printer, and A2 pages which contain detailed maps or drawings which you want to print on a high quality wide format printer. Also I have found that the Select Paper Size by Document's Page size option doesn't always select the right size paper (I think this may be something to do with size tolerances but haven't investigated in detail).

What I would propose is that there should be a panel which displays thumbnails for the pages with different colours for different page sizes - e.g. A4 thumbnails would be blue, green for A3, yellow for some custom size which you have set for some pages, red for A2 etc. (these colours are not pre-set: it would just assign colours for every different page size it finds in the PDF).

Then there would be a drop down list and print button to print the pages of a particular colour. The print button would take you to the normal print dialogue with the pages selected.

There are some other features which it might be nice to have as well but the above would be the general idea.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Print by page size

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hi, Nemo

Thank you for the suggestion. This topic has prompted some discussion among our team members, and while I cannot promise anything at this time, we will be looking into the possibility, and considering its uses in the future.

At the moment, the best that I can suggest is manually splitting the document into batches of each paper size before printing. That way you can print each set of files one at a time without the issues you described.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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Nemo
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Re: Print by page size

Post by Nemo »

I wanted to set out my suggestion in simple terms initially but if it might be the subject of future discussions, can I suggest one additional feature which would be a percentage tolerance box. For various reasons PDFs can end up containing pages which are not exactly A3, say, but nevertheless are intended to be printed on A3 paper. The tolerance percentage would specify how much one page can differ from another in size and still be counted as the same "colour".
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Print by page size

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Nemo,

Apologies for the delay in following this up further!
The discussions didn't result in any specific feature requests being made, and for the time being the feature would remain as it is.
The printing examples you gave with A4 printed on a 'everyday' printer and A2 printed on a wide format specialty printer would not be the norm for most people so those who do end up with such files for printing would normally be able to spend the few moments necessary to start these as two separate print jobs (for specific sets of pages to specific printers), and the "Select paper source by PDF page size" would remain the feature we offer for the more common case of A4 pages mixed with the off A3 of A5, and a printer with 2-3 trays that would offer printing the specified page sizes from a given tray.

Kind regards,
Stefan
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