Print previewing custom size vs. standard?

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
1

As I construct a PDF for CreateSpace in 6X9 trim size, I’m having to print preview in A4 as an approximation because–unlike in the “Page Settings” pane of the Compile wizard–only standard-size paper is available from the page setup’s “Size” drop-down box. Does a page setup and/or print preview custom size function exist? Am I just missing it?

Thanks…

2

I think I found the solution to this, you just have to add the paper settings to the printer in order for the page setup dialogue to show the option. It’s pretty easy to do, but the precise procedure may differ depending upon the printer driver. For mine, once I’m in the Preview screen:

  1. Click the printer driver I wish to use.
  2. Click the “Preferences” button (which is confusingly next to “Print to file”, but impacts all print settings nevertheless).
  3. Click on the “Paper/Quality” tab.
  4. Here you should see a “Custom” button in the paper options section, click that and setup a 6x9 paper size. As the help text indicates in this dialogue, you will need to reload the Preferences tab to see it in the list. However, we’re not worried about changing that here.
  5. Click OK to dismiss the printer settings dialogue, then Apply and then Cancel.
  6. Now you should be able to select 6x9 from the page setup button (the second from the right), and choose your new 6x9 setting.

I don’t actually have a printer hooked up to this computer, so I can’t test it further, but I’d be interested to see if it actually tries to print out at 6x9 when going from there, or if additional steps are required. It sounds like all you need is a preview though, so this should be good enough for that at least.

3

Page Setup is basically just a Windows tool that programs can access, and the page settings available from there are based on the selected printer; Scrivener doesn’t do anything with that. There might be a way Scrivener could customize this to add separate custom page settings, but I’m not really sure it’s possible.

Out of curiosity, why are you using the Print Preview for prepping for CreateSpace? Print Preview is just for displaying the print of pages directly from the editor, and it seems like using Compile would give you a cleaner output for publishing. I realize the “Preview” option from there isn’t going to give you the details you need for checking layout and all that, but it’s usually not too much trouble to run off a PDF compile and view it while tweaking settings.

4

I asked Lee about that a while ago for 3x5 index cards, and its not even possible to add hard-coded paper sizes to the tool, unfortunately.

5

EdDitto: Are you using Windows or Mac? You posted in the windows forum, but your profile shows “Mac” as your platform. That could have some impact on what advice you get, and how effective it is for you.

6

Hi, folks.

Testing the Windows version here, which explains why my platform differs from the subforum I’m posting in.

Ioa, I’ll try that, thanks…

The idea here is to approximate WYSIWYG as much as possible for the purpose of laying out “as-is” pages in the text editor for PDF compilation. It boils down to vertical centering.