[OP]
Contributor
I seem to see more and more things with user manuals printed in a long narrow accordian strip, maybe 3"-4" wide and 18"-24" long. Each "page" is about 3"x4" and completely unreadable without a magnifier. I usually go online to get a PDF manual, only to find that it's formatted just like the physical one: one long skinny page for each side.
Is there any easy way to cut that file up into real pages so it can be viewed/printed like a normal document?
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
Some PDF editing software will allow you to open some PDF files and change things. Adobe PDF reader will let you print PDF files larger than they appear on your screen. Or, You can open it on your screen and enlarge it until it is readable and then use the snipping tool to make copies.
Lee Schierer
USNA '71
Go Navy!
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[OP]
Contributor
That's why I said "easy".Originally Posted by Lee Schierer
The one I'm looking at now, I'd need to do that about 40 times.
Yoga class makes me feel like a total stud, mostly because I'm about as flexible as a 2x4.
"Design"? Possibly. "Intelligent"? Sure doesn't look like it from this angle.
We used to be hunter gatherers. Now we're shopper borrowers.
The three most important words in the English language: "Front Towards Enemy".
The world makes a lot more sense when you remember that Butthead was the smart one.
You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much ammo.
Contributor
It will depend upon how the PDF was created. If it's a JPG instead of text, you can't do much with that but enlarge it on the screen or when printing. There is a free program called Calibre. It's designed for reading e-books and managing your e-book library. They have both a mac and Windows version. If your PDF contains real text, you can add that "book" to the Calibre library and then Convert the "book" from PDF to Text or any other format in their list of options. You know the old saying. Garbage in. Garbage Out. The conversion all depends upon the quality of formatting in the original file.
I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and I think, "Well, that’s not going to happen."
Contributor
Hi Lee and all,
I use PDF Professional Suite (V 2.9.4) (not affiliated in any way) on an older Mac (OS10.13.6).
I think when I learned about it, it was free and I just installed it. I don't use the 'online' version.
When I get, or export from the web, a 'long, narrow' pdf, I open it with the PDF Professional Suite and brake it down into 'individual' pages/pdfs (select tool and drop-down menus).
Then, this same pdf software lets me 'merge' these individual pages/pdfs back into one pdf. . . with separate pages.
And it will print that way too - with separate pages.
Let me know if this helps.
God Bless all.
John H.
Another way is to use MS Print to PDF which should be installed on your computer as a printer option. Open the file and then use the print to pdf to print the file. You should see:
pdf print 1.jpg
Click on more settings and change the scale to a larger size:
pdf print 2.jpg
This is what should happen to your file when printed this way:
print.pdf
Lee Schierer
USNA '71
Go Navy!
My advice, comments and suggestions are free, but it costs money to run the site. If you found something of value here please give a little something back by becoming a contributor! Please Contribute
Friend of the Creek
I use Nitro PDF and you can resize the image, but if it is 3" wide, expanding that image to 8x12 will cause it to look goofy. Nitro has a feature to format the typing to MS Word, and you can copy the photos from the manual and insert them in a properly re-sized document. This would have to be one important user manual for me to want to do this.
Regards,
Tom
Contributor
There are a slew of optical character reading programs, many free, some online, some as a function of other word processing programs. Some will automatically import any non text images, most did not.
Adobe Acrobat is the one I used as a teacher when I needed to do this a lot to change commercial teaching documents for making accommodations for special education students.
They will convert to text that can be saved as a .txt or just about any other word processing document format. You can choose your preferred font and size, then print on whichever size paper you want.
Comments made here are my own and, according to my children, do not reflect the opinions of any other person... anywhere, anytime.
Contributor
Depending on the source document, this may or may not be an easy task to accomplish.
I can also speculate a fair bit of work might be done and never used much, if at all.
So, even though I'm 79 and taking the risk of being criticized, I would consider temporarily becoming a modern young person with their "I never print anything" and "It's all here on my phone, tablet, computer and I know I can find it if I ever need it" approach.
Full Disclosure: I do keep the original document, I do have a magnifying glass and I usually download an electronic copy if available from the manufacturer.
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