Adobe Community: How to I produce a PDF which goes right to the edge on a Mac?

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1. Steve Werner,

Apr 17, 2012 9:49 PM in reply to Murray in Perth WA

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What program are you creating your PDF from? It has nothing to do with computer platform, it's all in how the file was created and in how the choices for PDF creation are selected.

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2. Murray in Perth WA,

Apr 17, 2012 9:55 PM in reply to Steve Werner

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Hi Steve,

Thanks for your response. In the first instance I am using MS Word (Mac 2011.

When I was using MS Word under Windows there was a PDF 'printer' installed. Under Mac it offers the option to print as a PDF, but there seems to be limited control of the output options. It seems to me that it it taking the default physical printer as the options, and of course that printer is not capable of printing to the edge.

I also use MS PowerPoint (Mac 2011) and Serif PagePlus X6 (Windows 7 Professional/Parallels 7).

Murray

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3. Steve Werner,

Apr 18, 2012 6:06 AM in reply to Murray in Perth WA

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I use Word occasionally for writing text but it's a little hard for me to visualize what it is you're doing in Word that would go to the edge of a page. What you're talking about is usually done in some sort of page layout program. In that kind of program (e.g., InDesign or Pages), you can place objects all the way to the edge and overlapping to create a bleed. But Word is really not designed to do that because it's a word processor.

Can you attach an image of what you're trying to create using the camera icon in the forum editing window?

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4. Murray in Perth WA,

Apr 18, 2012 5:57 PM in reply to Steve Werner

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Hi again Steve,

Thanks for sticking with me.

The documents produced in Word are pretty standard fare for training, presentations etc, and they don't really warrant using DTP.

It is usually the front and back cover pages where I have iether an inage or background colour going all the way to the edge. When I have converted these to PDF in the past (under Windows) then the image or background colour also goes right to the edge. It just looks good when emailed and people open them up.

Murray

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5. Steve Werner,

Apr 18, 2012 10:09 PM in reply to Murray in Perth WA

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So I did a little exploring in Word for the Mac. I set the Word margins to 0 inches, then I placed a picture that went to the edges of the page.

The problem seems be that Word is very simple-minded, and when in the Print dialog, it adjusts the preview of the Print feature to the margins of the currently-selected printer. For my HP inkjet printer, that's about 1/8" in from the edges. When that data is passed to OS X to create a PDF, it uses those margins in the PDF file.

In Word for Windows, Acrobat installs a PDFMaker plug-in for Word. PDFMaker contols the creation of PDF so there are a lot more settings possible.

Acrobat has never made a plug-in for Word for the Mac. As to why, this has been debated endlessly for the past 15 or so years. Adobe claims that Microsoft doesn't provide the handles to do it in the Mac version of Word. Whether that's true, I don't know.

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6. Murray in Perth WA,

Apr 18, 2012 11:25 PM in reply to Steve Werner

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You have described exactly what I have experienced.

It was easy with Word under Windows, which is what me feel dumb when I moved to the Mac.

I can live with the inability of Word to do it on the Mac as there are many other positives. I will have to make more use of DTP for these documents.

Thank you very much for your efforts, Steve.

Murray

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How to I produce a PDF which goes right to the edge on a Mac?

Apr 17, 2012 8:20 PM

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