Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 7/6/2010

Question
Hi there

I have two separate questions which I hope you will be able to answer.

I have created a collage of photos in Illustrator, centered onto an A3 sized artboard.  In the Print dialogue box I selected: cute pdf - size A3 - landscape - do not scale.  For some reason the pdf looks perfect on screen (ie everything is centered with a 2cm border of white space) but when I actually print the document on an A3 printer, it's coming out with huge borders of about 5-6cm of white space.  Any ideas why this is?

My second question is:  I have copied across a stripe effect border and text from an MS Word document into Illustrator.  Looks great on screen but as soon as I pdf the document, the border changes to a solid line instead of the nice stripe it shows on screen.  I realise they are two different applications, but I know that illustrator does support word text and borders so I was wondering if there is a command I should be using to ensure images remain the same prior to creating a pdf?

Many thanks

Answer
Hi Sam,

You need to choose your specific printer profile (PPD) from the pulldown when printing. Your printer is the culprit. Just because you tell it to have 2cm borders does not mean your printer can do that. Most printers have a designated "live area" to print with and areas that it cannot print due to the mechanics of the printer. Choosing your printers profile will eliminate this but it looks like you will have to bring things into the size that the printer requires first.

As for the MS word stripe effect, I'm not sure where you read this but MS Word artwork is not totally compatible with printing from Illustrator. Text is ok.

Two things to try - first use the File>Place command to bring in the border file or you can try saving out from Word as a PDF and opening that in Illustrator.

Either way, the results will not be very good.

Hope this all helps.


Kevin