PDF Export peculiarity

[Tim Mariott]

This observation may be related to the earlier posting on "Pushing the PDF envelope".

I was puzzled when I first tried the PDF export that I didn't always get the whole piece. I have now looked more systematically and report as follows for a score which has 26 pages in Page Mode.

1. If I am in Windows mode, positioned at the beginning of the score, then PDF export works correctly: it flips to Page Mode then prints all 26 pages, numbered 1-26 in the PDF file.

2. If I move through the score in Windows Mode and then part way do a PDF Export, then it flips to Page Mode on the equivalent page and indeed creates another PDF file of 26 pages - but the pages start from the "current page" through to the end of the score and then repeats the last page for as many times that it takes to make up 26 pages. So in my PDF file I might have pages 21-26 of the score, followed by another 20 copies of page 26. The pages of the PDF file are numbered sequentially 1-26.

3. The same thing happens if I view the score in Page Mode and stop part way through the score.

I assume that this is not the intended behaviour though it is not a great problem as long as the user knows that they must position the score to the beginning before doing a PDF export.

Tim

[dj]

Hi, Tim:

Yeah, there are a number of peculiarities to PDF Export that I hope can be addressed, as it's one of the most useful tools in the Composer toolbox.

Sherry directed me to a program call PDFTools (http://sheelapps.com/index.php?p=PDFTools.HomePage) which is a dandy set of freeware cut-and-paste, mix-and-match tools.

When you end up with a set of partial .pdf files from the export or one with duplicate pages at the end, PDFTools easily handles the trimming and assembly.

I've used Composer's PDF Export together with PDFTools to compile score books for three musicals I've got happening next summer and the printout is phenomenal -- very high resolution and very crisp.

Compared to earlier versions I did using PrimoPDF as a virtual printer in Composer, the native PDF Export is head and shoulders above.

David