Document Maker: signwriting

[MARIA AZZOPARDI]

Hi again Val,
I have a soft-spot for Document Maker because we produced quite a lot of
long documents with it and the work looks very nice and presentable :)
It's a great program especially the ease it has to simply drag and drop
columns straight from Puddle.

I actually do have Skype now - well it's installed because we had some
friends from the US over with us and they used it once to phone back home
- only i don't know how to use it yet. I'll see if I can at least purchase
the Adobe Acrobat Professional - because that would be useful for all pdf
files. I'll keep working for now in Microsoft Word. It would be good to
talk one day through skype - or do you think we might find a solution to
printing A5 paper in DocumentMaker if we talk, because if you think it
might help I could make that little effort and learn how to use skype.

Thanks again for your help.
Maria

> 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 ;-)
>>
>
>
>