pdf

PowerPoint Not Printing PDFs – Here’s Why

So this is a problem, and I am guessing I am not the only one being frustrated with their computer – PowerPoint – Outlook – print drivers.

(note: paid actor, recreating computer frustration Troy is experiencing today)

After finally getting frustrated enough to look into the problem. The problem is any PDF I attempt to print resulted in this error message.

The problem is Windows, or Office. Or maybe it is an Adobe problem. But it is that Adobe is not recognizing the the new Windows default font Aptos (for more information on Aptos font, see this earlier blog post). My guess is Adobe does not recognize the font and does not know what to do with it, so it does nothing – aside from erroring out every PDF I attempt to print.

Note: I have not tested this on a Mac, but it is definitely an issue on Windows.

Here is the solution:

1. In the Office app (PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, Word – they all are experiencing this issue) and file to print, go to the Print dialog and select ADOBE PDF as the printer.

2. Click PRINT OPTIONS

3. In the Print Options dialog, ACROBAT PDF should be the preset based on selection in the print menu earlier. Click the PROPERTIES button.

4. In the Abobe PDF Document Properties dialog UNCHECK the RELY ON SYSTEM FONTS ONLY; DO NOT USE DOCUMENT FONTS option.

5. Click okay and the PDF should successfully print!

Note: I have not found a way to make this option unchecked by default. I also have been happy to create PDFs again and have not really dived deeper into changing the print options more permantly – mostly because I am hopeful Microsoft and Adobe will figure out this issue and fix it so this hack is not needed.

Troy @ TLC

 

By |2024-04-03T14:51:14-07:00April 4th, 2024|Resource/Misc|

Better, Bigger, 2-Up PDFs

Note: this is a re-post, originally posted April 4, 2016. When planning the posts for this month it made sense to include this tutorial again.

Printing slides is a common need. But the Microsoft presets are not optimal. For example, let’s look at “2-up” printouts directly from PowerPoint and then we’ll look at my preferred option which is using Adobe Acrobat to create the 2-up PDF printout.

Using Microsoft’s PowerPoint preset:

1. Go to File > Export > Create PDF/XPS Document

2-up PDF printout Export_Image1

2. In the PUBLISH OPTIONS section, change the drop down menu to HANDOUTS. Slides per page = 2. Keep HORIZONTAL setting. A print preview of the pages will be on the right.

2-up PDF printout PPT_Image2

Select OK and your PDF will be created.

2-up PDF printout PPT_Image3

 

But, these can be larger images of each slide if we do not use the PowerPoint preset.

 

To create 2-up printout using Adobe Acrobat (Note: This is a multi-step process, but the result is great):

1. Go to File > Export > Create PDF/XPS Document. This time don’t worry about the options, just create PDF with 1 slide per page (the default print setup).

2upBlog_1upPDF_Image4

2. Now we are going to print the PDF again. From the PDF of the slides, Go to File >Print

2-up PDF printout PDF_Image5

3. Select ADOBE PDF as your printer.

4. In the Page Sizing and Handling select MULTIPLE.

5. In Pages Per Sheet select Custom.

6. Set to 1 by 2, the small print preview should look like the below example.

7. PRINT.

2upBlog_PrintPDFoptions_Image6

As you can see, side-by-side, the Adobe Acrobat 2-up PDF printout on the left has larger slide images than the PowerPoint 2-up printout, the Adobe Acrobat 2-up takes up the page significantly more than PowerPoint does.

2upBlog_2upPDF_Image72upBlog_2upPPT_Image3

Just a simple option to provide better printouts. 

-Troy @ TLC

By |2018-04-04T11:29:56-07:00April 13th, 2018|Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

Use a PDF for a Slide Show

A PDF of slides, or any document if in the correct aspect ratio, can be used for presentation slides. I am using Adobe Acrobat, but most PDF viewing apps have the same capability.

Here is my sample 16×9 presentation of 4 slides exported as a PDF, now open in Acrobat.

PDFView_4

I have selected the first page vs. the Organize/Grid view.

PDFView_1

Go to VIEW > FULL SCREEN MODE, or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+L

PDFView_2

The Acrobat tool bars disappear and the slide displays full screen. Using the arrow keys or Page Up/Down keys, you can go through the pages just like a presentation.

PDFView_3

Notes:

  • No animation
  • No slide transitions
  • No video or audio (There are ways to add these, but not covered in this tutorial, and not part of PowerPoint’s PDF export)
  • Cannot be added to a master slide deck of all presenter slides (This is a separate file that just look like slides)
  • No presenter view (Duplicate display is recommended vs. extended desktop)

-Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T08:12:27-07:00May 23rd, 2016|Software/Add-Ins, Tutorial|

2-Up PDF Printout of PowerPoint Slides

Printing slides is a common need. But the Microsoft presets are not optimal. For example, let’s look at “2-up” printouts directly from PowerPoint and then we’ll look at my preferred option which is using Adobe Acrobat to create the 2-up PDF printout.

Using Microsoft’s PowerPoint preset:

1. Go to File > Export > Create PDF/XPS Document

2-up PDF printout Export_Image1

2. In the PUBLISH OPTIONS section, change the drop down menu to HANDOUTS. Slides per page = 2. Keep HORIZONTAL setting. A print preview of the pages will be on the right.

2-up PDF printout PPT_Image2

Select OK and your PDF will be created.

2-up PDF printout PPT_Image3

 

But, these can be larger images of each slide if we do not use the PowerPoint preset.

 

To create 2-up printout using Adobe Acrobat (Note: This is a multi-step process, but the result is great):

1. Go to File > Export > Create PDF/XPS Document. This time don’t worry about the options, just create PDF with 1 slide per page (the default print setup).

2upBlog_1upPDF_Image4

2. Now we are going to print the PDF again. From the PDF of the slides, Go to File >Print

2-up PDF printout PDF_Image5

3. Select ADOBE PDF as your printer.

4. In the Page Sizing and Handling select MULTIPLE.

5. In Pages Per Sheet select Custom.

6. Set to 1 by 2, the small print preview should look like the below example.

7. PRINT.

2upBlog_PrintPDFoptions_Image6

As you can see, side-by-side, the Adobe Acrobat 2-up PDF printout on the left has larger slide images than the PowerPoint 2-up printout, the Adobe Acrobat 2-up takes up the page significantly more than PowerPoint does.

2upBlog_2upPDF_Image72upBlog_2upPPT_Image3

Just a simple option to provide better printouts. It also works for 3-4-6-8-up printouts!

-Troy @ TLC

By |2016-08-10T08:27:31-07:00April 4th, 2016|Tutorial|

PowerPoint for Print Poster Design

“PowerPoint Documents” is our internal term for using PowerPoint as the design tool for print/PDF documents. These do not use slide transitions, animations, or other “presentation” features. This example is a part of previous post project (sync’ing narration to animated slides), where in addition to the presentation design we developed a 24″x36″ poster that visually coordinated with the presentation design.

SofnetPosterImage_1 SofnetPosterImage_2

Note: Typically we would design this in Adobe InDesign for assure print quality, full bleed design, etc.

The request was to develop in a PowerPoint so edits could be completed by the client for each talk. We setup with a custom page size, optimized the graphics for the larger slide size, added the requested content. The end deliverable was the 2 posters, 2 slides in a PowerPoint document. The client was able to revise content, create PDFs to send out or print (and we included print quality specifications regarding PDF from PowerPoint resolution).

– Troy @ TLC

 

By |2016-08-10T09:05:34-07:00July 8th, 2015|Portfolio, PowerPoint|

Print – 1 Sheet

I did a series of print design projects and this is one piece from them. Working from a hand drawn diagram I recreated the flowchart and content in the coordinated colors and design scheme.

This is a standard US Letter size piece that was supplied to the client as a print-ready PDF that could be used on the local color printer or sent to a print shop for large volume printing, all from the same file as there is no ‘bleed’ (color extending to the edge), which was a purposeful element of the overall design.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-09-16T11:03:56-07:00February 20th, 2009|Portfolio|

Save As PDF – From PPT 2007

I email a lot of PDF proofs of presentations for client review. They are smaller in file size and not editable. If you are using PPT07 creating a PDF is done through the SAVE AS dialog, not the PRINT dialog.

If you go to START >> SAVE AS and see this option: “Adobe PDF”

Then you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat with Distiller installed, or another Adobe PDF creation option installed.

But what you really want is this option: START >> SAVE AS >> PDF

This is Microsoft’s PDF print driver and it works incredibly fast, makes perfect PDFs of slides (including semi-transparent .png’s and autoshapes) and is my preferred method.

If you do not have this option don’t worry, it is not installed by default. Just head over to Microsoft’s website, go the Download Center, do a search for “Office PDF” and you will find these 2 links:

The PDF printer is free, and the XPS format is a Microsoft equivalent to PDF (not highly used yet), so you can choose to install it or the PDF only version.

– Troy @ TLC

By |2016-11-17T12:20:41-07:00November 14th, 2008|Tutorial|
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