Network Working Group Jacob Palme Internet Draft Stockholm University/KTH draft-palme-int-print-00.txt Category-to-be: Informational Expires: January 1996 July 1996 Making Postscript and Acrobat Files International Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as ``work in progress.'' To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the ``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Abstract Certain text formats, for example Postscript (extension .ps) and Adobe Acrobat (extension .pdf) specify exactly the page layout of the printed document. The commonly used paper format is different in America and the rest of the world. America uses the "Letter" format, while the rest of the world uses the "A4" format This means that documents formatted on one continent may not be printable on another continent. This memo gives advice on how to produce documents which are equally well printable with the Letter and the A4 formats. By using the advice in this document, you can put up a document on the Internet, which recipients can print without problem both in and outside America. Palme Do not implement based on this draft [Page 1]
draft-palme-int-print-00.txt June 1996 Introduction Certain text formats, for example Postscript (extension .ps) and Adobe Acrobat (extension .pdf) specify exactly the page layout of the printed document. The commonly used paper format is different in America and the rest of the world. America uses the "Letter" format, while the rest of the world uses the "A4" format. The American Letter format is 8.5 x 11 inches (215 x 278 mm) while the ISO standardised A4 format is 210 x 297 mm (8.27 x 11.69 inches). The Letter format is thus 5 mm (0.19 inches) wider, while the A4 format is 19 mm (0.75 inches) taller. This means that documents formatted on one continent may not be printable on another continent. It is oboviously desirable that documents put up on the Internet are printable on all continents. This paper gives advice on how to achieve this. Temporary note This version of this Internet draft is based on the author's experiments using Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat on a Macintosh computer. I would appreciate if people who use other platforms and software could test if my advice will apply also to their software. Some demo documents which can be used to test the conclusions in this paper can be found at the following URLs: For Macintosh: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/ietf/draft-palme-int-print-demo.sea For other platforms: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/ietf/draft-palme-int-print-demo.zip Method 1: Use wider margins Paper format you use when converting the document Suggested minimal margins to Postscript Paper or Acrobat orien- Suggested change Left Right Top Bot- format tation of margins tom ------------ ----------- ----------------- ----- ----- ----- ----- A4 Portrait Add 20 mm (0.8 15 mm 15 mm 35 mm 35 mm (upright, inches) to the top 0.59" 0.59" 1.38" 1.38" horizontal) of page and bottom of page margins A4 Landscape Add 20 mm (0.8 35 mm 35 mm 15 mm 15 mm (lying, inches) to the 1.38" 1.38" 0.59" 0.59" vertical) left and right margins Palme Do not implement based on this draft [Page 2]
draft-palme-int-print-00.txt June 1996 Letter Portrait Add 6 mm (0.2 21 mm 21 mm 15 mm 15 mm (upright, inches) to the 0.82" 0.82" 0.59" 0.59" horizontal) left and right margins Letter Landscape Add 6 mm (0.2 15 mm 15 mm 21 mm 21 mm (lying, inches) mm to the 0.59" 0.59" 0.82" 0.82" vertical) top of page and bottom of page margins The reason why you have to add 20 respectively 6 mm to both the top and the bottom margin is that you do not know what kind of printer the recipient uses, and different printers feed paper in different ways, requiring the margin to be added either at the top or the bottom of the paper. Method 2: Print with reduced size This is a method useful for the recipient of a document with the wrong paper size: The recipient sets the printer to print with reduced size. When the sender produces the Acrobat or Postscript files, the sender should "print" with 100 % size, but when the recipient prints the Acrobat or Postscript files, and if the program for printing Acrobat or Postscript files allows this, the recipient should print the document with 92 % or less of full size. Many programs for printing Postscript files do not allow this. In that case, the recipient can convert a Postscript document to Acrobat format and then print it with the Acrobat printing program. This requires, however, that the recipient has the Acrobat Distiller program, which is not freeware. 15. Author's Address Jacob Palme Phone: +46-8-16 16 67 Stockholm University and KTH Fax: +46-8-783 08 29 Electrum 230 E-mail: jpalme@dsv.su.se S-164 40 Kista, Sweden Palme Do not implement based on this draft [Page 3]