How to get A4 and Letter PDFs for online viewing
Note, over time, new features are introduced into our software regularly and some screen layouts change.
Everything discussed below is still valid, although some screen layouts will now vary.


This section was prompted by the following questions:

Why is the PDF file so large?


From the 2014 versions of MacStitch and WinStitch, the advanced PDF export produces large, high definition PDF files.
The idea is that we maximise the detail when printing.
For some people, this presents a problem because when opened on screen, the image is much large than the screen size, and they would prefer to see the ‘whole page at once’ rather than a portion.



In the 2015 editions, simply choose the size of paper you expect the PDF to be printed upon, in the export screen:

Pasted Graphic

And you can apply margins at the same time.

On the METADATA tab, there is now an option (QUALITY) to internally compress the images.
This massively reduces the file size, which helps for web sites and emails.
At the lower settings, you can often find a reduction from 6Mb to perhaps 1Mb

PDF Quality Percentage




For older editions:


Depending upon the PDF viewer you are using, you can use a setting to ‘scale to fit’ for either on-screen viewing and especially for printing.
Tick the box ‘scale to fit’ when printing:

Pasted Graphic


But
if you are using a Mac, you can also use this technique to create A4 sized versions of the PDF files.

The screen shot above is taken from ‘Preview’.. an OSX app.

Click on the PDF button at the bottom left.

Pasted Graphic 1


If you use ‘Save PDF’ , it will create a smaller PDF that is ‘normal sized’ for viewing on screen.


(nb: MacStitch and WinStitch 2015 will support this feature directly)