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How do I change page size of an existing .pdf?

Explorer ,
Aug 04, 2013 Aug 04, 2013

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I have Adobe Acrobat  XI Pro on my Mac running 10.6.

How do I resize an existing .pdf document that is 20" x 40" down to 4" x 8"?

Thanks!

Bob

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correct answers 2 Correct answers

Community Expert , Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

Print it to a new PDF file with that page size...

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Adobe Employee , Apr 05, 2018 Apr 05, 2018

Hello Johnmc,

Sorry for the delayed response and inconvenience caused. Please refer to the following Adobe article and discussion which discuss about resizing a PDF RESIZE PDF

You can also refer to the Adobe article Scale or resize printed pages in Acrobat and Reader

Feel free to update this discussion for any further assistance.

Regards,

Anand Sri.

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Community Expert ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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Print it to a new PDF file with that page size...

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 23, 2014 Jul 23, 2014

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The print to new page size does not work well.

This would work but does not allow you to control the
margins especially when going up in paper size. There is a Change paper size
dialog in the Crop tools but it does seems to create the new page size but you lose
all the content of the page.

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New Here ,
Aug 22, 2017 Aug 22, 2017

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How do you do that?

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Community Expert ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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Alternate method (if you have Adobe InDesign): Place the large PDF in InDesign. Scale it to the desired size. Choose File > Export > Print and create a new PDF.

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LEGEND ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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In both of these cases you will lose any markup. However, they are the same processes I would have recommended also. You might be able to select everything on the page and then reduce the size, but I don't think you can do this easily. You would then have to shrink the page (with the crop tool). Just printing is probably the fastest solution.

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Explorer ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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Thank you Gilad D, Steve and Bill for your answers. Unfortunately, they don't solve my problem.

Acrobat does not have a virtual printer option for a Mac operation 10.6. The only way you can "print" to a .pdf is by opening up any application and using File -> Print -> PDF -> Save as PDF.

Any application, that is, except Acrobat.

The Acrobat print dialog box gives the user a robust number of options to manipulate the printing of a document. Sadly, there is no "print to PDF" option. When you choose "Printer" (lower left corner), you get the printer's default dialog box that gives making a PDF an option. However if you choose this, another dialog box pops up stating "Saving a PDF file when printing is not supported. Instead, choose File > Save." When you go to File > Save, it is greyed out (since you are using an existing saved PDF file). If you try Save As, you are not given the option to resize the page.

Alternatively, when you open the existing PDF file in Macintosh's Preview or Skim applications, you are given the option in the print dialog boxes to scale the image. However when you print to a PDF, the file size does not change (which is one of the driving motivations for changing the page size).

I can't believe that Adobe doesn't have an option in Acrobat to address this issue. While I appreciate the suggestions regarding InDesign (or even PhotoShop for that matter), I'd rather not drop $400 +/- for a program to solve a problem that a reasonable person would expect Acrobat to do itself.

Please... are there any other options?

Thank you,

Bob

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Community Expert ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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Those are the options I'm aware of.

There are many features which people think "should be" in Acrobat (or any large application). You can file a feature request here to pass what you think should be included to those who make the decisions:

Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form

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Explorer ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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Thanks, Steve - I appreciate the link and just submitted the request.

Sorry to hear there aren't any other current options.

Bob

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LEGEND ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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This requirement seems pretty rare, except in high end print circles (since Acrobat can scale on printing). So high end print-specific plug-ins may offer this facility. But InDesign may be cheaper.

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Explorer ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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I am a commercial real estate agent and I have to create large and easily transportable documents.

I'll often get plat maps and building renderings at 2 or 3 times the standard 8 1/2" x 11 and the additional resolution brings no benefit to the package. The "cost" is the ultimate file size and, with some e-mail accounts still capped at 5MB (hard to believe, but true), I don't want to be the one that sends a file so large that it fills up their storage capacity forcing subsequent e-mails to be turned away.

I'd argue that the need for it is "rare" - but I would agree that many could take advantage of the feature if it were offered.

Besides, what fun is an application upgrade if you can't offer new "features"?

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LEGEND ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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Ah, so it isn't really the size in inches that concerns you, it's the size in megabytes.

I can tell you that the high end tools for resizing in inches do nothing to change the size; if ever Acrobat added a tool to do that it would probably be the same.

There's no direct connection between size in inches and size in megabytes. To reduce the latter, you can reduce the resolution of images using tools already in Acrobat. But maps are often made up of line drawings, which cannot be reduced.

Limiting email to 5 megabytes is still good manners. Consider the person forced to fetch your email on a cellphone paying by the megabyte! But there are many ways to send large files other than email, such as Adobe's sendnow service.

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Explorer ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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Test Screen Name - thank you.

For me, it is both screen size and file size. In my business, I have just a few moments to capture a prospective investor's attention. If the rendering of the project is a huge (40", say) then the subsequent 8 1/2" pages will show on some readers as being very small (since the initial screen view was sized to fit the largest document in the file). Having all the pages fit into the same width just makes the presentation a little more professional.

I've been using PhotoShop since V 1.0 in 1990 and usually use it to resize large PDF documents. I found myself doing that again this weekend and then had the thought, "Why can't my $200 Acrobat application do this?"

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Mentor ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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IF you have Acrobat installed click on the PDF button and hold until Context menu popups choose Adobe PDF button.

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Explorer ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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Phillip - thank you for taking the time to write. However, I don't understand your comment.

I do have Acrobat installed here on my Macintosh. But I'm not sure what/where the "PDF button" is.

If you're talking about the Printer & Fax options in the System Preferences, Mac OS 10.6 does not allow for Acrobat to be a "printer" by itself, you have to access it through one of the print dialog boxes from the printers that it's connected to.

When I access the PDF option through the printer's dialog box, I can create a new PDF, but I can't seem to be able to resize the page such that a 20" x 40" page gets reduced to 4" x 8". Since I don't need the page to be that large, I also don't need the file size that accompanies it.

Maybe I've misunderstood what you are trying to tell me. If you have the time (and think your answer solves my problem), would you be willing to clarify?

Thank you!

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Mentor ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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  1. File Menu > Print
  2. Click on PDF button
  3. Hold down wait for context menu to popup
  4. Choose Adobe PDF.

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Explorer ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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Phillip,

My apologies for being obtuse (I have problems with Mondays in general...) but I am not seeing the "PDF" button you are referring to. I've made a screen capture of the dialog box that comes up when I select Print.

button.jpg

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Mentor ,
Aug 05, 2013 Aug 05, 2013

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My applogies for running you around on a wild goose chase. I thought you were using another application and trying to create an original PDF.

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Guest
Dec 06, 2013 Dec 06, 2013

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Hope this is helpful from my Mac running OSX 10.8. From the above screen, I click on Printer... and it opens the standard printer dialog. In the bottom left corner, there's a PDF button.

Update: Sorry, didn't expect so much resistance from the program. Basically every function in the PDF print menu is not supported by Adobe. Go with saving from Preview...

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 02, 2015 Feb 02, 2015

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For what it's worth you are correct and this is true all the way up to Acrobat 11.0.10 on OS/X Yosemite 10.10.2 (to be specific: there are NO print to PDF options available from within Acrobat - seems bizarre, but it's true - at least on all three of my machines.)

Perhaps people keep offering this suggestion because it works on their Macs, but it's definitely not the case on any of my Macs -- nor apparently those belonging to many of the others in this thread.

So you folks really have the ability to print to PDF from within Acrobat XI for OS/X??

Anyway I'm going to try doing it in PhotoShop...

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Community Expert ,
Feb 02, 2015 Feb 02, 2015

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Said it before, but in case it got lost in this long discussion, this is really easy in CutePDF Professional. It might be an option in other versions of CutePDF. I don't know. www.cutepdf.com

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LEGEND ,
May 16, 2015 May 16, 2015

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The print option is in Windows. You might be able to open in Preview and create a new PDF from there.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 12, 2016 Oct 12, 2016

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Did you ever fix this issue, I have the same problem?

Thanks

Simon

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Community Expert ,
Oct 13, 2016 Oct 13, 2016

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Use the Preflight Tool of Acrobat DC Pro.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 13, 2016 Oct 13, 2016

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Where is "change page size" in the Preflight tools?

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