Document Maker: signwriting

Thu Jun 10 17:46:34 UTC 2010

SignWriting List
June 10, 2010

Hello Maria and Everyone!
It is really nice to know that you LOVE DocumentMaker, Maria. I do too. Thank you for this message.

Of course I am sorry to hear of your printing frustrations. I share the same frustrations with you. I just contacted our SignBank and DocumentMaker programmer, Todd Duell, and we will be meeting in July to try to solve these problems, and also to update SignBank in general, to use the ISWA 2010 symbols. Funding for this is a problem for us right now, but I have a month to try to find some funds to make this possible.

Meanwhile, it could not hurt for you to save your own funds to purchase one of these products:

Adobe InDesign
and/or
Adobe Acrobat Professional

Do you own the professional version of Adobe Acrobat? Not the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, but the Professional version of Acrobat? The reason that could help you is that once you get a PDF document from DocumentMaker, if you can create a PDF, then you can open the PDF document in Acrobat Professional, and print from there, and Acrobat Pro has a more sophisticated printer driver I believe, to let you print PDFs in different formats...

Another thought - Do you have Skype, Maria? It doesn't matter if you do not have a video camera...we could just talk on Skype like a voice phone. And that is a free telephone call. If we can get Skype to work for us, over Skype I can walk you through different ways to try to solve your problem right now...and you never know - maybe we can find the solution together -

So write to me privately if you want to work on Skype together -

Val ;-)

---------

On Jun 10, 2010, at 1:15 AM, MARIA AZZOPARDI wrote:

> Dear Valerie,
> I've followed your instructions step by step, but I can't re-scale in
> DocumentMaker and print it directly. In fact when I'm using Document
> Maker, I don't have the option of 'Page Setup' only 'Print Setup'.
> 
> I've spent quite some time now trying different ways of making this happen
> (trying to change settings in my Printer Driver, using Word Pad), and the
> only way i can print A5 is by previewing the pdf file, copying each page
> separately and pasting into Word. However, even this is not ideal, because
> when i do so the resolution of the SignWriting is not as good as it is
> when you print directly from Document Maker.
> 
> The only solution I see right now is to use Word Document. It would be
> good to have Adobe InDesign, but we don't have the funds for it. I'd
> rather not use the trial for a month, because I need something I can use
> long-term.
> 
> Yes, I LOVE DocumentMaker because the work looks so neat! I can't make the
> signwriting look so neat when I use Word. AdobeInDesign seems to work best
> - The Gospel of John is also a beautiful piece of print work - and i
> believe you used AdobeInDesign for this - so I can see it's great.
> 
> Thanks for your help Valerie - I SO understand that there are no funds to
> improve Document Maker - and in truth I guess if other programs (such as
> Adobe) work just as well as an improved version of Document Maker, then
> it's best to use your resources elsewhere - rather than work on a creating
> a program that, in a way already exists.
> 
> Thanks again,
> maria
> 
> 
>> SignWriting List
>> June 9, 2010
>> 
>> Hello Maria!
>> Please see my answer below...
>> 
>> ----------
>> 
>> On Jun 9, 2010, at 2:12 AM, MARIA AZZOPARDI wrote:
>>> I must have asked this question back in 2008. I'm trying to use Document
>>> Maker again, and am finding it impossible to print on paper size A5. I
>>> tried to locate the answers to my question asked back then from the
>>> Archives - but can't find them. I would appreciate some help with
>>> printing
>>> paper size A5 from Document Maker.
>>> 
>>> So far I go I do this: click on File - Print Setup - i change paper size
>>> to A5, then i click on properties to make sure paper size is set to A5,
>>> then i click ok, ok..but then the print comes out on A5 paper but not to
>>> scale - that is, it just fits what it can on an A5 paper rather then
>>> rescale the A4 size to fit an A5 paper -
>>> 
>>> am i doing something wrong?
>>> 
>>> thanks
>>> Maria
>>> 
>> 
>> --------------------
>> 
>> I am happy you like DocumentMaker, Maria. I only wish I had the funds to
>> fix the software a bit, so it worked better for both of us...
>> 
>> You need to use "scale" and reduce the document to 50 per cent or 75 per
>> cent or whatever size is needed to reduce it to fit A5...
>> 
>> And a lot depends on your computer's printer driver because the Scale
>> feature is in different places depending on your computer...Here are some
>> suggestions...
>> 
>> 1. Under Scripts menu at the top inside DocumentMaker, choose Print A4
>> rather than Print US Letter. Even though you do not want A4, and you want
>> A5, at least A4 is a European paper size. This is more important than you
>> can guess...here is a screen capture:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 2. Once you have chosen A4, do your work. And before you print your
>> document, choose Page Setup if you have that choice on your computer. Here
>> is a screen capture of my Page Setup on my Mac. You can see I chose A6 at
>> 50% scale. It may be that on your computer, with your printer drivers and
>> Page Setup, you can choose A5. I hope so. And try to find the place where
>> you can type in 50% or 75 % or whatever scale works for your printer - you
>> may have to experiment a little to find the exact scale percentage you
>> need...If this doesn't work I do not know what to tell you, i am sorry...
>> 
>> See attached screen capture...
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 3. If you have ongoing problems, I suggest using Adobe InDesign...I use
>> Adobe InDesign, and it is such a sophisticated program that it provides
>> excellent ways to export to PDF in all sizes and then you can print from
>> the PDF, or print directly from their fancy printer drivers..They have
>> spent a fortune on software development and for that reason, their
>> features are more comprehensive...
>> 
>> Someday I promise to update and improve DocumentMaker because I love the
>> program and want it to work well for all of us -
>> 
>> If you cannot afford Adobe InDesign, which is an expensive program, you
>> can download a free month of use I believe, a trial version, on
>> Adobe.com...
>> 
>> Keep us informed how it goes - if you can figure out how to scale a
>> document in your printer driver, you might be able to use DocumentMaker -
>> I hope so!
>> 
>> Val ;-)
> 