Changes desktop prefs; app prefs bonkers
Reviewed by: Liz, Fri Jan 13 2006
This app may be great for other uses than mine, but I've had nothing but trouble with it so far. I have a Dell Inspiron 600m running service pack 2.
I wanted a simple and easy way to create (from Word docs) pdf files that are 4.18 X 6.88 (mass market size) for online submission.
I was pretty excited to try this, as it looked very basic. (A "stick-shift" of apps.)
First, I tried using a Word doc that was set up to be 4.18 x 6.88, and printing (as described in the help) to the Solid Print app. This brough up the app, which had its own prefs. I created a custom size page (4.18 x 6.88) and called it Mass Market, and then I seved the converted doc to pdf.
The resulting pdf was 4.01 x 6.93. Now, since the online submision requires exact measurements, that simply won't do.
Furthermore, it turns out that whenever the app comes up, it changes my desktop font prefs so that Clear Type goes away and everything looks kinda funky. This happens every single time the program opens.
I tried changing the setup of the Word document with the same size result. I tried changing the size of the SP prefs in various ways (pages, fit, etc.) and could not EVER get the pages to come out the right size.
Only when using 8.5x11 Word docs set up to come out of 8.5x11 pdfs, did they come out more or less as expected (minus a tenth of an inch here or there.)
I guess if you want to convert that size of docs to that size of pdfs, you're in luck, because you'll be able to do so.
But if you are looking to make any kind of pdf that is not that size, you may have a long row to hoe.
The frustrating thing is, I bet there is some way to do it. It's just that there are way too many ways to get in to change the prefs, and no indication as to which is one that will actually affect anything.
If this worked like it looks like it should, I would probably love it, but as it is I wasted about three hours trying to make it come out.
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