| Author |
Message |
Gerard Sanchis (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2003 - 06:44 pm: |    |
We are starting to send specs directly to the printer in PDF format, doing away with the hard copies of the past.
I suspect that this is a trend that will take hold and I wouldn't be surprised if most of our projects were delivered that way in 2 to 3 years hence. I'd like to hear from all of you to see if you've had the same experience.
I know the drawbacks of this method, but also know the advantages - we can work until the last moment before sending the specs out to the printer. Saving paper is not an advantage because we still print on scrap paper for a last review of the project manual.
The problem is that we have been asked to send a single file that contains all of the documents in a project manual, which we haven't done yet. Is there an easy way to link all the sections together electronically to achieve this result? |
Rich Gonser AIA CSI
New member
Username: Gonserarch
Post Number: 2
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2003 - 07:23 pm: | |
The Adobe Acrobat program will allow you to append pages and even combine existing PDF files. This program costs $300-$400 however it is a quality program.
BTW, A free downloadable program alternative is PDF995. This program even works for CAD and can reverse a PDF to text, with some limitations. Even though I've not done it yet, with a couple of check boxes selected, the program can append, even print to file to the last PDF "printed". For free it's probably work a look. It is free with the acceptance of a pop-up advertising box that comes up when you use it. You can buy the program cheap to get rid of the boxes. Just Google "PDF995". |
Colin Gilboy
Senior Member
Username: Colin
Post Number: 95
Registered: 05-2000
| | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2003 - 07:27 pm: | |
http://www.pdf995.com/ |
Richard Hird (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2003 - 08:47 pm: | |
Gerard
I have been E-Mailing files to printers for several years. Initially I sent postscript files, which a printer in our area was accepting as direct input to his printer. When he started to run up the cost, for lack of a competitor, I dropped it.
When I found out about .pdf's I went right back to e-mailing. Any print compnay can do it. He simply prints a hard copy that and he can combine with other hardcopy to load into his repro equipment.
I have the Distiller version of Acrobat, but I prefer to use a macro to combine all my files into a single file before I print. This allows me to do a lot of other things to the file besides print an pdf. I still archive my sections individualy.
The only problem I have with .pdf approach is that the scale gets slightly smaller than a hard copy direct from printer. But using a single file allows me to change the default font scale for the file with a single change.
I believe you will find .pdf's to the printer is great. You will also find it useful for many other functions, so it is well worth the short learning curve. |
Marvin Chew
Junior Member
Username: Bigmac
Post Number: 12
Registered: 03-2001
| | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2003 - 09:03 pm: | |
I have had a problem with Adobe Acrobat not coping exactly the orginal... Many times it will automatically repaginate or I may get blank pages.
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William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS
Senior Member
Username: Wpegues
Post Number: 227
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2003 - 10:29 pm: | |
Anytime an element of new technology requires one to do additional steps that you would not normally do with that technology, then either something is wrong with the technology, or look for someone trying to make their life easier at your expense.
I would never bother to take the time to send a single file of my sections to the printer. There is no good reason for it. He has a table of contents, he can just as easily use that.
And think about it, for drawing plots, where the drawings must be put in their correct order, and where sometimes the drawing number/file name is not necessariliy an indication of the actual order in which they occur, the printers don't seem to have any problem getting the drawings correctly bound when they are sent electronic files. Why, because they are sent a list shwong the order.
Some might try to make the point that there are more pages to a project manual when it is printed out - but that's a red herring. Its the number and of electronic files. A good sized project will almost always create more total number of drawings files than spec files. Additionally, the printer receives the drawing files often from various sources and still puts them together just fine. I imagine you collect any consultant's spec sections together and send him the entire project manual, that consultants don't send their spec sections direct to the printer.
So printers asking for a single file, that's just silly on their part.
Frankly, I would also find it more difficult to communicate my intentions for the printed product. I don't publish on white paper. I use a standard grey copy paper, so its not an additional charge over white. I publish 2-sided, so the color tint eliminates the read through of 2-sided print on white paper. I put a light blue seperator sheet between divisions. Not a big deal, but I have noticed that many owner's and others apply tabs to these seperator sheets.
William |
Margaret G. Chewning CSI CCS
Senior Member
Username: Presbspec
Post Number: 13
Registered: 01-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 13, 2003 - 10:56 pm: | |
I'm with William on this one. I did get a panic call from a printer once because I had sent separate files for all of my sections. She was convinced that she had to open each file to print it. Which would have taken a while. Once I explained to her that all she had to do was to make sure the files were in order in Filemanager,(explorer), (either in sequence or reverse depending on how her paper exited the printer) then she could highlight the files and print directly from the the files. It worked just fine. Lots of furor for nothing.
BTW I use PDFJaws. It wasn't a free download but was considerably less expensive that Acrobat writer.
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(Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 14, 2003 - 07:55 am: | |
Marvin:
Your problem results from your program setting up pagination for the your connected printer rather than Acrobat. If you have the Distiller version, before you set up your pagination, you just set your printer default to Acrobat. If you rely on MS WORD to generate the .pdf it is just a wrestling match, (print check and change) each time.
Combining files: Using an old DOS program macro it takes me all of 30 seconds to combine files, and also generate an index. I admit I never tried to do it with a Windows Macro. I would pay to have one written if I had to. Combining files has so many advantages besides printing, checking, search and replace.
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Curt Norton, CSI, CCS
Senior Member
Username: Curtn
Post Number: 27
Registered: 06-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 14, 2003 - 12:12 pm: | |
Margaret
Explorer (Windows 2000) does not always send batches of Word files to the printer in order and I have not been able to print through explorer with acrobat distiller. I had to open each pdf document to print it.
All:
I also like the single file approach. It requires a bit more care on our part and proper communication with the printer, but having a complete electronic copy of the Project Manual is a wonderful tool.
Those of you who use macros... Are you combining Word processing files and then creating pdf files or do you have a macro that combines pdf files? |
Richard L. Hird (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 14, 2003 - 01:46 pm: | |
Curt
I combine my files in Word Perfect 5.1 (dos), then open the combined file in Word Perfect 11 so I get WYSIWIG to I do some checking; unify dates titles, paginate spell check etc. I often run a print preview. Then I print a .pdf. I print fronm Word Perf. 11. If I find some problems in the .pdf I can always reprint. In essence I get two print checks.
Another thing to get use to; it takes some time, 30 minutes sometimes, to print the .pdf on a large project.
As you can tell from my spelling and grammer problems on this site I need a lot of help from my computer to remind me of things. For instance the unregistered guest above was me; just forgot. I often wondered what I would be doing now if I did not have a computer
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John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA
Senior Member
Username: Bunzick
Post Number: 144
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 14, 2003 - 03:54 pm: | |
If you are using Word, and using autonumbered outlines to create the paragraph numbers (which ARCOM does in Masterspec - and I happen to like), it is a lot of work to make one large Word document. Word will make the second section start with Part 4 rather than Part 1. You must reset the numbering at the start of each section. Plus, you must create separate "sections" (word's definition not CSI's) for each specification to be able to keep section headers or footers unique to the section. But, you cannot "paste" headers/footers in with the text, you have to recreate them after merging the documents. One could probably create a macro to do this, but you would need to be doing it regularly to make it worth it. |
Alan Mays, AIA
Senior Member
Username: Amays
Post Number: 22
Registered: 02-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - 01:36 pm: | |
I combine my specifications in Microsoft Binder. The advantage of that is that I can include Excel files along with Word files. You can rearrange them easily and modify the sections as needed since they work with the Word and Excel programs. After combining them I print them to Distiller. Using Binder allows me to be able to create a combined spec without 100+ files to combine in Acrobat or have to search though when questions arise.
Acrobat also has it's pluses. I can add sections in Acrobat as needed and now I prefer that consultants send PDF files instead of word files since printer settings, etc causes havoc with section breaks/page breaks. Fonts can also be a problem. It is better that I get from the consultants what they expect to see instead what my printer spits out. I can also add/delete/replace PDF sections as needed within Acrobat. It is a drag and drop task. IF I have a print service that cannot figure out that each odd paged section requires a blank page or am double sid printing myself, then I can even add blank pages in Acrobat.
Be aware that Binder is a PC only application. It is not available for the Mac. |
(Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 01:52 am: | |
We frequently deliver PDF files of our work and the work of the other project consultants. This has been the trend for the past 2 years. If we deliver paper, we will include a CD of PDF files.
I agree with Gerard on several points.
PDF's do not save paper, because we still print and examine every page. Just can't seem to catch all the problems on-screen.
Delivering PDF's allow us that extra day to work on the project. Also saves the FedEx charge.
The latest Acrobat (6.0?) has the ability to combine multiple documents into one PDF file. We have not used it, but one of our clients uses it on all of their project manuals and then makes them available online.
We use Masterworks (bundled with AIA Masterspec) for generating bulk PDF files and for bulk printing in Word. Masterworks works extremely well for both tasks. It will print Word files in correct alphanumerical order (Windows cannot do this without user intervention).
Masterworks also has a "master document" feature that will attempt to combine all the spec sections and tack on a table of contents - but don't get too excited until you try to get it to work right. This "master document" consists of all the Word documents pasted together with "end of section" markers between them. A word to the wise - these break-type markers are not a robust feature in Word; you can really get a screwed up file very easily. |
David E Lorenzini
Senior Member
Username: deloren
Post Number: 21
Registered: 04-2000
| | Posted on Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 11:05 pm: | |
This is a reply to the first inquiry on this thread. I'm not sure anyone really gave Gerard a method to easily create a single PDF file. This question has been asked before, but until Adobe Acrobat version 6.0, I didn't know of an easy way to do it.
I'm sure there are several ways to accomplish it, and I'll propose one way to get things started. This has been verified with Microsoft Windows, but Acrobat Help describes a similar method for Mac systems.
You can used either the Word Open dialog box or File Explorer to select your files. File Explorer may save a step. First, select the files you want to print. Right click and you will see a command in the Shortcut menu "Combine in Adobe Acrobat...". A dialog box will open (if you don't see it, click the Adobe icon in the Task Bar). The files should be lined up in order, but you can Arrange, Add Files, or Remove Files as desired. Check the "Include all open PDF Documents" box.
Click OK to convert and consolidate the Word files into one PDF file. You can use a mixture of applications to create the PDF file. They will open and close as required. If you use Word's Open dialog box, you may have to close it so it can start the process. When the progress bars stop, open Acrobat by clicking on its icon in the Task Bar.
The files will be all in one file, but you may need to add a blank page to the odd-numbered sections to do double-sided printing. For this you will have to use Acrobat's Documents>Pages>Insert command. Prior to this process, you have to prepare a blank document (Blank.doc) and convert it to PDF. Then use it to insert the blank page where required.
Here are some comments on the process:
1. Adobe gives the file a default name of Binder#.pdf, but you may want to change it to represent the project or Division.
2. It took about 4 seconds per page to create the single PDF on a 100-page Division. That's about three Sections per minute with an average of 5 pages per Section.
3. Creating a single file for the entire project may turn out to be too large to include as an attachment when emailing it to the client or printer. You may want to create your files by Division to keep the file size down.
4. Another way to reduce the file size is to use Acrobat's File>Reduce File Size... command. In testing three Divisions, the final results varied from 60 to 70 percent of the original size.
5. Caution. If you normally add security to your files to prevent Document Assembly, this process removes all security so it can do the assembly. It does not add the security back at the end, so you will have to do that manually, if desired. |
Gerard Sanchis (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 04:35 pm: | |
Thanks to all of you, and especially to Dave L.
I didn't realize how late we are with this procedure.
To alleviate having to insert even numbered blank page in Acrobat, we do it when we paginate the document in Word. It's simple and easy to do with a macro.
I agree with Dave that large files are not always uploadable and we will try breaking it down by division or bruning a CD, which might be easier.
Once again, thanks to all. |
Margaret G. Chewning CSI CCS
Senior Member
Username: presbspec
Post Number: 14
Registered: 01-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 21, 2003 - 10:58 pm: | |
This thread has had me doing some thinking and experimenting with a small project that was by its very nature a bit unwieldy. (Not a typical project manual.)
Using some of the ideas above, I used MS Binder to consolidate my materials in an orderly fashion and used the PDF995 download program to convert to PDF for my client's use. Worked like a charm.
I'm sure I'll find a fly in the ointment eventually, but thought I'd pass on my experiment on for use by others.
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David Axt, AIA, CCS, CSI
Senior Member
Username: david_axt
Post Number: 185
Registered: 03-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 03:10 pm: | |
I am curious about MS Binder. Where can I learn more about this program? |
Margaret G. Chewning CSI CCS
Senior Member
Username: presbspec
Post Number: 15
Registered: 01-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 03:43 pm: | |
If you have MS Office Suite you should have it on your system. I have MS Office small business and had to go back to my set up disk to install Binder.
To get some general info, open up a Word file and ask the "office assistant" in Help.
Once you have Binder installed it's not difficult to use, but pay attention to the info in the help menu, 'cause it's not exactly intuitive, but not bad once you have figured it out. |
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