URGENT tech help needed.

[deathpixie]

I have a .pdf document that's needed to be printed, but the problem is the original text is so tiny, you can only see it clearly when you zoom to 200% and the printout is illegible. Short of transferring by hand into an Excel spreadsheet (please say no, since that's going to take forever), is there any way I can manipulate 11 pages of document so you can read the bloody thing?

We need it very urgently, so if you're online and have an idea, let's hear 'em. Also, our copy of Adobe is version 6, I believe, so I'm short a lot of the usual editing stuffies.

Comments

[frito-kal.livejournal.com]

Acrobat or Reader?

[deathpixie]

Acrobat.

[frito-kal.livejournal.com]

There should be a way to edit the layout and enlarge just that text - I don't have Acrobat here, but I'll see if I can find a guide on how to do it.

[nute.livejournal.com]

With Acrobat, yes. With Acrobat Reader, which she likely has, no. Acrobat Reader is free, Acrobat costs hundreds of dollars.

If it's a table, then the only option is to cut stuff out of the table, paste into another program (word or excel), increase font size, and print as a new document.

Badly-designed PDF, sounds like.

[deathpixie]

I've called the originator of the document and she's going to work on sending something bigger. Of course, the other option is to use the photocopier to blow it up, but we'd have to fax a lot of people. Thanks!

[frito-kal.livejournal.com]

If you have Adobe Acrobat, you also may be able to convert it to a .doc - if you've got Acrobat Reader, it might be more tricky.

[deathpixie]

Crap, it's reader. I tried on James' updated version, but no joy there either. Hopefully Michelle at Communications who sent this thing can help.

[frito-kal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Reader's pretty useless for anything other than "Print this crap out" You might be able to find a one-shot freeware converter but without knowing what you can and can't install, I can't really recommend anything.

[deathpixie]

No installs at all - government's paranoid about viruses. Looks like it might be the old-fashioned way with the photocopier.

[frito-kal.livejournal.com]

Crapweasels.

[nute.livejournal.com]

Cut and paste into Microsoft Word, increase the font size? It won't be pretty, but unless you have Acrobat Writer, you can't change the font size in the PDF.

[deathpixie]

Can't - I lose the formatting completely and end up with word salad.

[nute.livejournal.com]

Can't be done, then.

[deathpixie]

Yeah, that's the conclusion I'm reaching.

[resplendissante.livejournal.com]

Do your printer settings allow you to change the magnification of the document? That would be my best guess.

[deathpixie]

Tried that and failed. *wry* Text's smaller than our biggest magnification. :P

[resplendissante.livejournal.com]

... print it on the biggest paper you can find? And then send it to whoever made the document with "thanks a LOT, idiot" written on it, clearly.

[khanfused.livejournal.com]

If you can find someone with a semi-recent copy of OCR software (like Omnipage), that will harvest content from the PDF in tabular form.

*How* quickly do you need this? I've got what's needed - but I'm also under deadline crunch. I don't think my boss would approve of that kind of delay in my workload - no matter how cute the lady is that I'm helping out ;-)

[deathpixie]

It's pretty much as immediately as possible, and I can't send it out any way since it's on the confidential side of things. But thanks for the offer and the compliment. :)

[just-shai.livejournal.com]

Email it to Gmail and open it in HTML? It may turn into word salad this time too, but it might be worth a shot?