pdf printing

December 9, 2005 7:17 AM

.pdf printing: How can one print only a selection of pages a pdf document without printing the entire document?
posted by dazed_one to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

Are you using Adobe Acrobat?
If you're in Acrobat, click the print icon, and it should give you a dialog box where you can select lots of printing options, including the pages you want to print.
If you're using another program, don't: use Acrobat. One of the Macs at work insists on showing pdf's in another program, and then you lose all your options for printing.
posted by easternblot at 7:28 AM on December 9, 2005

The Print dialog of both Acrobat (full product) or Reader (free product) ought to offer a setting for range of pages. Even ghostview/ghostscript has this.

I think the real question is what program are you using to view PDFs that doesn't allow this?
posted by Rhomboid at 7:40 AM on December 9, 2005

dazed_one may be asking about printed multiple, non-contiguous page ranges. In which case I don't know.
posted by deadfather at 7:57 AM on December 9, 2005

I think if you want to print like... pages 7-10, 18-20, 25-30 (etc) you have to do each bunch separately.
posted by antifuse at 8:04 AM on December 9, 2005

I have Acrobat 7 Pro, so your setup may vary, but:

1) open the "Pages" side-panel
2) select the range(s) of pages you want to print (shift-click, ctrl-click, etc)
3) right -click and select "print pages"
4) the print dialog will have the "selected pages" option checked, and will then print your selected pages.
posted by misterbrandt at 8:19 AM on December 9, 2005

misterbrandt's got it. In other versions the side-panel is called "Thumbnails."
posted by deadfather at 8:39 AM on December 9, 2005

If you're using another program, don't: use Acrobat.

A suitable number of other programs that read and display PDFs manage to allow you to print ranges of pages. In fact, most of the open source products out there that I've seen depend on the printer itself to present you with a valid range of options for printing.

In short, I think it's rather limiting to suggest that only Acrobat will solve this person's issues.
posted by thanotopsis at 9:05 AM on December 9, 2005

The standard print dialog in windows/most printer drivers usually handle non-contiguous page ranges just fine, as antifuse has them typed out. IE: PageA-pageE, pageH, pageJ-pageL, pageN-pageZ

Just put the ranges in the print range box in the print dialog, should work just fine.
posted by GreenTentacle at 9:15 AM on December 9, 2005

Foxit Reader, while otherwise excellent, will not print non-contiguous pages (though it will print, say, 5-12).
posted by fidelity at 9:28 AM on December 9, 2005

it's rather limiting to suggest that only Acrobat will solve this person's issues.

The thing we have here as alternative to Acrobat is...(let me open a pdf to find what it is...)..."Preview". That's it. And it doesn't do anything useful (besides previewing) so there you can't select pages. If it's that program, well, that's what I'm saying: switch to another program (Acrobat seemed the most likely, but well, yes, anything meant for viewing pdf's is fine)
Anyway, it would help if we knew what program dazed_one is using.
posted by easternblot at 9:38 AM on December 9, 2005

easternblot: don't confuse your lack of awareness of an app's features for it not having them: Preview (if we're both talking about the app bundled with Mac OSX) can perfectly well print a selection of contiguous pages -- you simply specify the range in the Print dialogue box.

However, it can't, as far as I know (and please, someone correct me -- or, Steve, fix it) print non-contiguous pages.
posted by obliquicity at 11:34 AM on December 9, 2005

Oh, hey, you're right. (Obviously I haven't used Preview in a loooong time.)
posted by easternblot at 12:13 PM on December 9, 2005