Printing PDF with smaller font size

[dimtim]

Hey guys, I like to purchase ebooks from the internet in PDF format. Most of them have protection on them so you cannot copy text or modify the document-which I understand. The problem is that I want to be able to print the book, but make it so that the text size isn't so big, because then it could be about half as many pages. Is there any way to adjust the font size when you print the document, or dare I say it, be able to copy the text to word to shrink it???

Thanks a ton
Tim

[LloydAZ]

The first thing that you would have to do is to break the password encryption on the PDF before you can do anything else. There is software out there that will break the password for you, but I've found nothing yet that is freeware. Do a google search for PDF password removal.

The second thing that you will have to consider is was the file printed to a PDF file, or is it a scanned image. If it's a scanned image, then there is nothing that you can do.

As far as shrinking the font size.... Nothing in Acrobat that I know of will do it. You would have to copy and paste each page into a word document and manipulate the document that way.

A few suggestions, if you manage to get the file unlocked:

1. Depending upon your print driver, you can usually print the pages 2-Up on a sheet, thus reducing the number of pages that you will print.

2. Look for the Acrobat plugin called "Quite Imposing Plus." It will allow you to Impose your PDF file in many different ways, including printing pages N-Up (Multiple pages per sheet) or setting the document up as a saddlestitched booklet. As well as many other options, but these two options I use quite often. HOWEVER... Quite Imposing Plus is Quite Expensive! It costs around $1000. You will also NEED a full version of Acrobat, not Acrobat Reader.

I work in a digital print shop and work with acrobat files almost exclusively.

[dimtim]

Thanks a ton, I will look into these.

Thank you for the response.

[rallynavvie]

Quite Imposing rules, I don't think I'd use Acrobat without it. However depending on the type of encryption you should still be able to do the 2-up page imposition via your printer driver.

Breaking encryption on some PDFs is pretty tough though. The newer versions are using the latest AES methods and can even scramble your data if you print to file. The only way to get around cracking it is to get a seperate PC to use as an emulated printer that you 'print' to and it gathers the PS output to file for re-distilling to PDF. They're the same type emulators used for industrial espionage (collecting documents printed at businesses without tapping the computer itself, nobody expects the printer to be tapped).