* White Margins on PDF saved charts

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philmcleod
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by philmcleod »

After using Diagram Save As > PDF File the settings in the Print dialogue shown by the Properties button on the Page tab are all for margins of 0.
I appreciate that the pdf page adjusts to the tree. As I said previously, when I said a nominal small border on the other 3 sides it was not meant as a must but as a minimum as I appreciate it will change dependant on chart size.
However if setting the margin immediately before printing to PDF there is no reason that I can see as to why the page size and background increase when a larger margin is asked for. It seems as if the margin is interpreted as the height of the pdf page above the chart as opposed to the margin from the edge of the paper.
The diagram scale is set to 100% and this strange behaviour also happens on slightly larger charts that are scaled to 70% to fit A4.
Yes, I did try reinstalling V 6.2.6
FH Support has not responded yet
I do not believe that I have any gremlins in my PC, but there may be a gremlin in FH or the FH PDF writer that pops out in my set up when I am trying to do this. I am using Win 7 64 bit
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by tatewise »

I did not ask for the Margins and Zoom, what I wanted was the Page tab itself with the Custom Width & Height.

The reason the PDF increases in size with Margins is to accommodate them without cutting off boxes.
It starts by effectively drawing a rectangle surrounding the tree boxes.
It then adds the Print tab white space Margin(s) if any.
That gives the Diagram Width and Diagram Height shown in the Save as PDF File dialogue as per your Capture3.
Finally it adds the Save as PDF File dialogue Margins to prevent boxes being jammed against the edge of the background.
So overall that typically adds 0.5"(12.7mm) x 2 = 1"(25.4mm) to each dimension, plus the white space Margin(s).

BUT what I have noticed is that the amount added for the Print tab white space Margin(s) is much more than the amount defined.
i.e.
Set the Print tab white space Margin(s) back to Installation Settings of 0.
Use Diagram Save As > PDF File and note the Diagram Width and Diagram Height shown in the Save as PDF File dialogue and then Cancel.
Now set a Print tab white space Margin to a round figure such as 30 mm.
Use Diagram Save As > PDF File again and note the Diagram Width or Diagram Height has increased by significantly more than 30 mm, especially the Diagram Width for Left/Right Margin settings.
That is certainly not correct, and the error varies proportionally to the Diagram Scale.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by LornaCraig »

As an alternative to the Use Current Page Layout method, I have found that the following also works:

1. Set the desired margins in Diagram Options > Print tab
2. In File > Print Setup select the Family Historian PDF printer and make sure the paper size is set to A4.
3. Display page boundaries and adjust the scaling and page position so that the diagram fits within a single page.
4. Use File > Print to create the PDF.

The result is a single A4 aspect ratio page with white borders.

Stage 3 would not be required if the Single Page PDF option worked, but can be done quite quickly when you get the hang of it. After adjusting the scale, move the page frame over the diagram by left-clicking and dragging on a page corner. (Don’t use the Movement Control box to move the tree, because that will move it relative to the background generation stripes, so vertical movement would make them meaningless).
Lorna
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by philmcleod »

Mike,
To answer your point, the custom width and height on the page tab is 168.2 x 87.7.
Maybe I do not fully understand the process of pdf but I am looking at the problem simplistically. I regard the pdf as the chart and the background area as generated without any adjustments to default margins. In the chart I am using as the example that size is 168.2 mm x 87.7 mm. The default is that it always appears in the middle of an A4 page. All I am trying to do is not alter the chart or background but to not have it in the centre but slightly to one side.
Margins are easily set in the FH Reports, which are pdf, via Options/Page Layout - Margins , so why cant this be done for the charts. I do not see a difference in principle.
I get the impression that FH has been written assuming that reports may need margins adjusted, but that charts will always be required in a the centre of a stand alone sheet, not bound into any book, hence it has no facility to do what I want.
Whilst I very much appreciate the efforts that you and Lorna have gone to, trying to find a solution, it appears to me to be a smoke screen, a lot of fiddling around to try and find a solution to something that FH cannot do, at least in the current version.
As I have said previously, I have over 200 small charts to go on A4, and I am prepared to run and save them again if necessary, provided it would be a simple and consistent adjustment, but am not prepared to fiddle around for weeks. Any chart that looks as if it will have the edge lost in the binding, I will get printed professionally as a long chart.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by Jane »

Did you try using the Book option, you could add all 200 charts to a book and then create the PDF
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by philmcleod »

Jane,
Thanks but not an option at this stage nor appropriate. My family history "publication" which I have been putting together for 2 years is all arranged in volumes of families, groups of ancestors etc and reports from FH go alongside the appropriate chart which is why they are to be put into A4 folder.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by Jane »

Sorry you misunderstood me, use the book option to layout the pages for the charts as you want you can then print or save as PDF and then add to the folders you want.
Jane
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by philmcleod »

Jane,
Thanks for suggestions, but as my volumes amount to more than 4000 pages I have been trying to merge as many pdf files into large pdfs that contain at least a whole chapter, which consists of numerous documents that have not come from FH. I want to be able to amalgamate the A4 charts as part of the larger pdfs as I do not want to have lots of loose pages to try and insert.
The purpose of the large pdf files is simply that if I pass on the research to our children in a small number of pdf files there is at least a small chance that they may update or convert them to whatever software is available in years to come. If I gave them 2000 files that needed conversion to continue to be read, then it would not happen. We would all be naive to thing that computers as we know them and current pdf format will be around in 30 years time, let alone 200 years.
As stated previously, as I am nearing the point of printing 4000 pages of A4 myself and spending about £1800 on professional printing of long charts (A3 to A4 x 5 m), it is not the time to go back to rethink my approach.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by LornaCraig »

philmcleod wrote: Whilst I very much appreciate the efforts that you and Lorna have gone to, trying to find a solution, it appears to me to be a smoke screen, a lot of fiddling around to try and find a solution to something that FH cannot do, at least in the current version.
Phil, both the Use Current Page Layout method and the File>Print method do work. We had not realised that you had already saved such a huge number of charts using the Single page method, and including the background stripes. Given that, I can understand your reluctance to save them all again. I guess the message for anyone embarking on a similar task is to use one of the above methods to Create the PDFs.

I think the single page option was introduced to make it easy to save large charts for printing on large paper. As these charts would not normally be bound into books the issue of offsetting margins did not arise.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by philmcleod »

Lorna,
I am afraid I cannot get the Use Current Page Layout to work. Whilst it will give the white margin, it also completely covers the page with the background strips and still pushes the chart off the bottom of the page onto a 2nd page.
It must be my age
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by LornaCraig »

Is the diagram already very close to the edge? If so reduce the scale very slightly and try again.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by tatewise »

Phil, I agree that it should be a straightforward process to add a white margin to Diagrams similar to Reports.
However, you analogy with Reports is suggesting that Margins should be added without adjusting the output page.
But when you adjust the size of Margins in Reports the content of each page is adjusted, sometimes dramatically.
Similar effects apply to Diagrams when Margins are adjusted.

I think I have found a bug in FH V6 associated with the Print tab Margin settings that complicates the process.
To confirm that bug I really need the help of others to confirm they observe the same symptoms.
Then it can be reported to Calico Pie with some confidence and hopefully fixed.

Please, ensure that File > Print Setup is naming the Family Historian PDF driver.

Start with the Print tab at Installation Settings so all Margins are 0.
Use the Diagram > Diagram Statistics command and note the Diagram Size (excluding margins) for Width & Height.
If Diagram Save As > PDF File on One Page is used the tree is correctly centred on the background.

Now change the Print tab Margins so one of them is non-zero, say 1" or 25mm.
Use the Diagram > Diagram Statistics command and note the Diagram Size (excluding margins) has increased, which is NOT correct and is the bug.
If Diagram Save As > PDF File on One Page is used the background has a white Margin where requested, but the tree is no longer centred on the background, which is a feature of the bug.
This effect is more and more pronounced the larger the Margin setting.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by philmcleod »

Mike,
I understand what you say about reports but in the case of these small charts the margin SHOULD make no difference unless the chart was already close to the bottom of the page
As for the bug, I believe you are correct.
In the first case my landscape chart excluding margins was 145.8 mm x 55.2 mm
I added a 25 mm margin to the top, landscape
The size of my chart then increased to 145.8 mm x 61.9 mm
So adding a 25 mm margin increased sixe by 6.7 mm
Using a 50 mm margin it increased to 145.8 mm x 71.8 increasing size by 16.6 mm
Whilst these increases are fairly small there perhaps are some other things going on with page boundaries.
In the default situation with FH pdf as default printer, even when set to landscape as default, when the chart is opened the page boundaries are portrait with chart centred. If altered to landscape in Options Print tab the page boundaries change and the chart becomes off centre and pushed to the bottom of the page. If border is then added it pushes the chart down even further.
Hope this helps
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by philmcleod »

Mike,
I have received a response from FH support which is not really helpful.
It is a long response about it being best to use Print to FH pdf rather than Save as pdf . and setting the margin in the pdf printer page set up. I tried this but it makes no difference.
Although I initially suggested that they read all the forum posts, I am not sure if they have actually did.
The response was from Martin
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by tatewise »

Thanks Phil, yes that confirms what I am experiencing.

The reason the Saved Chart overrides the File > Print Setup is that it saves those settings with the Chart.
So even if Print Setup names your external printer, when the Chart is opened it adjusts Print Setup to what applied when the Chart was originally saved.

I can also reproduce your multiple-PDF page symptoms very easily, and is definitely a bug in FH.
It mainly occurs when the initial tree fits within one A4 page.
When it is rather wider than it is tall, with a Top/Bottom Margin set more than about 20mm, then it gets split horizontally.
When it is rather narrower than it is tall, with a Left/Right Margin set more than about 20mm, then it gets split vertically.
Larger initial trees that span several page boundaries, or whose width and height are similar, do not exhibit the multi-page problem.

Regarding the Calico Pie response, it only has any chance of working if the tree fits within one page, otherwise you will get multiple pages anyway.
I agree with you that with the settings as above, using File > Print misbehaves just the same.
If you zero the Print tab Margins, then File > Print > Properties > Margins and Zoom > Customise zoom and origins > Top origin: 30 then you get 30mm top white margin.
Mike Tate ~ researching the Tate and Scott family history ~ tatewise ancestry
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by philmcleod »

Mike,
Thanks - I am pleased that you have managed to reproduce my problem. I was beginning to think I was having a seriously long "senior moment"
I think FH Support may take more notice of you than me
Phil
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by tatewise »

I'll certainly give it a go with them.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by LornaCraig »

Mike, I confirm the findings you stated above, regarding the increase in page size as the margin is increased.

However I have not had any problem getting the Curent Page Layout method or the File>Print method to work, provided the diagram scale is set at a suitable level to start with.

I also agree with your comment on the analogy with reports. Adjusting margins in reports often changes the content of the page and the same thing will happen with diagrams. The question of offset margins has probably never arisen before because the single page PDF option was introduced to cater for charts being printed on large sheets of paper which would never be bound in a book.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by tatewise »

Lorna, are your Diagrams relatively 'square', or have you set the Print tab Margins all at 0?

I found Phil's problem easy to recreate, but only with the settings as described in my 3:04 pm posting.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by LornaCraig »

No, not particularly square. It's just a case of choosing the right scaling. If a diagram gets split, just reduce the scale slightly.

As an example, I have just used the FH Sample Project to create a descendant chart for Ian Stephen Munro. Scaled at 75% it fits in a single A4 (landscape) page. Horizontal and vertical postion of the diagram within the page can be adjusted on screen. You can set margins of 1" at top and 0.5" on the other three sides.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by Jane »

If Martin has done a detailed reply can you post it here so we can see what they have suggested.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by tatewise »

You must just be lucky Lorna.
I presume you did repeat the symptoms with 100% Scaling and agree that should not happen?
I have tried with 50% Scaling and a Top margin of 20 mm and it still splits in two horizontally.
Try clicking on the expansion button to remove Elizabeth and Patrick at the bottom, and try again.
It is not important to position the tree within the page boundaries, just as long as it is small & wide.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by philmcleod »

This was Martins reply from FH Support
If you choose to view page boundaries, or just to print in the ordinary way, Family Historian will use whatever page size is specified for your current printer. You can check this by clicking on 'Print Setup' on the File menu when viewing a diagram. In fact it's a little more complicated than that for 2 reasons: first, even if the page size is A4, it is not necessarily the case that the entire A4 space is available for printing. Some printers can print write up to the edge of the paper. Some can't. And even if they can print right up to the edge of the paper, they may be configured in fact to not do so, but to leave a margin. So the page size as far as Family Historian is concerned, is whatever space is available for printing on each page, in practice.

A second complication is that Family Historian allows you to specify print margins itself. These print margins will be over and above whatever margins are specified at the printer level.

If you want to create a PDF file, you have 2 ways of doing it. Option 1 is simply to 'print' to the "Family Historian PDF" printer. Option 2 is to click on Diagram > Save Diagram As > PDF File (.pdf). If you take option 2, you should completely ignore whatever page sizes you are seeing when you view page boundaries because they are not relevant (and nor are any printer margins you may have set anywhere). The function of "Save as PDF" is to create a single PDF file within (if possible) a single PDF image that shows your diagram. Unlike ordinary printing, in this case the page size is calculated and adjusted to fit the diagram. Unlike print margins, the margins you specify with this function (on the dialog that appears) simply allow you to control how tightly the image will frame the diagram. The assumption of 'Save as PDF' is that you want to create an image of your diagram. So 'Save as PDF' is similar to 'Save as JPEG', 'Save as Bitmap', and all the others. They all do much the same thing, albeit in different formats.

If you want to have a blank margin, to the left of a printed sheet, you should not use 'Save as PDF'. Instead you should take option 1 and create your PDF by 'printing' to "Family Historian PDF". Whenever you print, you always have the option of changing the printer, changing the page size, changing the margins etc. But of course if you do, the page margins you have previously been viewing will have been calculated on the basis of values that you have now just changed. So if you make these last minute adjustments, you shouldn't expect that the print out's page boundaries will still match what you had previously seen on-screen. So my recommendation is that you do it this way:

(1) open your diagram and click on File > Print Setup and choose "Family Historian PDF". Choose the page size you want. I also recommend that you click on the 'Properties' button next to the printer name and, on the Page tab, click on the 'Margins and Zoom' button. You can set margins for the printer here, but I recommend you don't because it's a bit unwieldy. Instead make sure that the margins are all zero by clicking on the 'Reset to Default' button and clicking OK. Click OK again to close Print Setup.

(2) Click on File > Page Setup. Whereas previously you were configuring the printer and the windows were managed by either Windows or NovaPDF (who wrote the Printer driver for the "Family Historian PDF" printer), now you are configuring how Family Historian manages pages. Leave all margins at zero except the left margin which you should change to whatever size you want. Click OK.

(3) Take the option to show page boundaries so you can see where everything will print. Bear in mind that the boundaries only show where printing on each page will start and end. This view does not show you anything at all about the margins that there will be around the print. If you want to see that, click on 'Print Preview' on the File menu. If you want to move the diagram, to centre on a page or to re-scale it to any size, do so now (you can do this from the 'Enable Moving/Resizing' window).

(4) Finally, without making any further changes to margins or page sizes or printer etc, click on File > Print and print to the current printer, which should still be "Family Historian PDF". You will be prompted to specify the file name to save to.

I recommend getting a copy of the book "Getting the Most from Family Historian 6", available from Amazon for £14.95, which provides a lot of help on printing diagrams and many other issues.


This was followed by 2 replies from Ros
Looking through the thread I can't see the solution Martin has suggested to you has been tried.

The key is to ensure you have set up the FH PDF printer and set the page set up for margins and page rotation before aligning the diagram on the page and then Printing to the PDF printer.

When we follow that process the PDFs are correctly produced with the left hand margin and the diagram not truncated.

It's important not to use the Save As PDF option, but rather to use the File>Print option and the Page setup margins and orientation and not the Nova PDF ones.

Please can you try the solution Martin suggested and if it still causes problems send us some screen shots of each of the 4 steps and the resulting PDF.

I attach screen shots of our setup and the resulting PDF


image

image


Followed by
Just to add I see you have actually already saved all these diagrams as charts, unfortunately these hold all the settings so you will need to change them on each chart. Another option should you want to try it is to use your PDFs without margins to print to the Windows 10 printer and add the margin using the settings in the PDF viewer including the option to shrink the image
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by philmcleod »

My response to Ros was:
Firstly all the diagrams are saved directly as pdfs, not FH charts, if that makes a difference
I again tried Martins method but it still did not work
I am attaching the original saved as pdf file that is fine except it is in centre of page and also the result of adding a 30 mm margin along the long edge and printing via Martins method.
I am also attaching the screen shots of the print dialog boxes to show how they actually print
Adjustments to scaling is not an option as charts are already scaled where necessary as small as is possible to read
Even if I could get it to work, as it is an involved process involving redoing 200 + charts it really is not worth it. I will have to live with the charts centred on the A4 page. I appreciate that perhaps the saving of pdfs was not really designed for what I am trying to do.
When I started this 3 years ago the only guide available was relating to FH V5 and whilst it may well be similar it does not cover margins and assumes all charts are free sheets, not going in a folder or book
If the ease of saving charts and adding margins cannot be simplified then perhaps some better and more detailed help should be made available either as part of the FH Help file or as a separate booklet.
Alternatively I may be expecting too much and maybe the average user just has large charts of ancestors and descendants which go to professional printers. Whilst I have these large charts I have also created small charts of all the “twigs” of the trees.
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Re: White Margins on PDF saved charts

Post by LornaCraig »

Mike, I think we must be talking at cross purposes. You said it's "not important to position the tree within the page boundaries, just as long as it is small & wide." But the whole point about the Use Current Page Layout or File> Print method (which always produce identical results) is that you do adjust the layout on the screen first, avoiding page boundaries. You can see an A4 page shape on the screen and you can see the diagram within that shape. (EDIT: this is confirmed by what Martin said in point number 3 of his reply which has now been posted by Phil)

Using 100% scaling on that particular diagram it won't fit into a single A4 page at all, regardless of margins. And using 50% scaling works fine. Removing Elizabeth and Patrick makes no difference. I think we must be talking about different methods.
Lorna
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