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Application Preferences

The Preferences Dialog allows setting global preferences for PDFClerk.

Settings For All Documents

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The settings under this tab apply to all documents:

bullet Graphics Quality: sets the interpolation quality used when rendering graphics. Better interpolation results in smoother graphics but has a negative impact on speed. Does not affect printed or PDF export output.

bullet Preferred Units: the unit type used by default throughout the application. PDFClerk will interpret values in this unit unless the input explicitly defines another unit. Unit abbreviations are p = picas, pt = points, mm = millimeter, cm = centimeter, in = inches.

bullet Import PDF using: by default when opening/importing PDF documents, PDFClerk uses the title attribute of the PDF document, if present, as the source name of each page. If no title attribute exists than the name of the imported document’s file is used as the source name. To force the document’s file name to always be used as the page’s source name choose File Name from the popup menu.

bullet Text Box Border: you can choose to have text boxes default to drawing a border.

bullet Canvas Color: sets the background color of the content view.

bullet Thumbnail View Canvas Color: sets the background colour of the thumbnail view.

bullet Default Slide Show Delay: sets the time in seconds between slides when in slide show mode.

bullet Greeking Threshold: set the point size below which text is greeked when rendered to screen. (Greeking displays solid grey rectangles for lines of text, instead of individual characters.

bullet Unrotate Objects When Added: Forces objects to appear in their original orientation even if the page they are being added to is rotated (which is not the same as a page being shown flipped in an imposition, in which case this does not apply).

bullet Check For Updates At Startup: whether to automatically check for new versions of PDFClerk Pro when starting PDFClerk.

bullet Time Stamp Changes To Annotations: whether to automatically adjust the time stamp on dynamic annotations when they are edited.

bullet Stamp Changes To Annotations With User Name: whether to set the user name property of dynamic annotations to the name of the current user when they are edited.

bullet Open PDFs after export: whether to automatically open the generated PDF documents in PDFClerk after exporting to PDF. This is useful to instantly review the results. (Exception: This setting is not honoured when exploding to PDF.)

bullet Warn About Paper Size Mismatch When Printing: Allows a warning to appear at print time if the dimensions of the first page do not match the paper size.

bullet Install PDF Service: installs PDFClerk in the PDF Services menu that is available in the print dialog.


Settings For New Documents

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The settings under this tab control a number of initial settings for newly created documents:

Apart from the settings under the View tab, the settings under the adjoining tabs reflect the settings available in the Document Settings dialog.


Printer Calibration

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The settings under this tab allow adjusting the output to the peculiarities of the destination printer:

bullet Compensate for any horizontal or vertical misalignment your printer may exhibit. Not all printers place their output where you would expect and so you may find that the output is off center and needs to be adjusted. This can be done through the printer calibration controls. You can adjust the corrections for front and back side of sheets individually. Positive values will move the pages on the sheet to the right or down, negative values will move the pages to the left or up. To help find the best values for the calibration settings you can print a calibration page. This will print a page according to the current calibration settings. Fold the page through the middle horizontally and then vertically (make sure you fold precisely through the middle), then check whether the folds align with the center of the calibration axes. If the folds are off, count the number of ticks along the relevant axis and enter that value in the corresponding controls. Enter negative values if the fold is toward the sides marked -Vertical or -Horizontal and positive values if the fold is toward the + side. (You can enter fractional values, like 2.5 or 1.25.) Then reprint the calibration page to check the new settings. If necessary repeat this procedure until satisfied. As you change the values and move to the next field you can see the layout change instantly in the content area. Important: the adjustments are made at the PDF document level, not at print time. This means that the pages in exported PDF documents will be offset by the calibration amounts.


See also

Editing Topics