I have uploaded a screen copy of an example of one of the quotes/invoices etc that I am having issues with.
I use Nitro Pro Pdf Creator. What happens is that when I try to print to pdf, manager hangs and crashes with Nitro. With PDF Xchange editor (which I have the trial version of), it creates the pdf, but the first page is blank, the second page has the company/client details and header column and the third page has the actual quote content.
The problem that I have with the pdf button in Manager is that it changes all the fonts and sizes and looks different from what it looks like in Manager. Nitro preserves all the fonts and sizes.
This issue only occurs when I have one row with a lot of text content in it. If I just had say network install in description field and ten other rows, then the print and nitro pdf works fine, the problem is when you one row with around 10-15 or more lines of text.
Could you either make the pdf button create the pdf with the same size fonts etc as in Manager or fix the print option when you have one row with many lines of text as the issue is with Manager as neither Nitro nor Tracker Xchange Editor work in this scenario. Thanks
To clarify - when you select the Print button and then select Nitro PDF as the printer the crash occurs - yes.
So are you saying that the situation only arises when a line wrap occurs.
Therefore, if you re-entered the above sample without incurring a line wrap the Print to Nitro would work ok.
I have created a new picture to demonstrate the problem.
its not the line wraps that are causing the problem, but rather the number of lines. If you have 25 lines, the print will work perfectly in both nitro and pdf editor. If you have 26 lines, pdf editor spreads the quote over three pages and nitro just crashes on the save as dialog box.
I don’t really think that the print to pdf should be fixed as the print should be for printing to an actual printer. I think that the manager pdf option should be fixed to display fonts in the correct size - the fonts are smaller, different fonts and different colours. Both Nitro and pdf Xchange Editor show the font as arial, 10 pt and slightly grey/black colour whereas Manager shows it as Notosans 9 pt and dark black text.
It is very subtle, but it just looks more polished in the Nitro and Xchange format than in the Manager Pdf format so this is why I prefer to use Nitro pdf. For 99% of the time it works brilliantly, but not when I have 26 lines in the description field.
From the example screenshot you originally gave (before editing), it seems you may be somewhat abusing what anyone might think of as reasonable capability of an accounting form. Whether you entered all that text via multitudinous line items with no pricing or used HTML to generate such a large amount of text (complete with a range of formatting), you are trying to use an accounting tool as a word processor. As anyone designs forms, limits naturally have to chosen for what people might put in various fields.
Can I suggest that you simplify your life by streamlining quotes, invoices, etc.? Prepare the detailed proposal in a word processing document. The task will go much faster and you’ll have much greater flexibility for what and how you display information, including full flexibility for tables, inserted spreadsheets, and so forth. Then attach the document to your quote in Manager. It will always be there, together, and you won’t be frustrated by unpredictable behavior of competing PDF generators.
On the issue of font sizing, that seems to be more related to operating system and printer drivers than Manager. I see the same thing as I move from one output approach to another. For that matter, Word frequently doesn’t print or produce PDFs exactly like what you see on the screen either.
Wow. Now that’s not the issue I see. I just see a slight, overall increase in font size, maybe a point, when printing directly instead of creating a PDF, that I attribute to scaling issues, similar to the way a printer driver often scales things to 97%. Never an actual font change or color change. I do know, however, that Manager does not support all font-family attributes, so maybe not all colors either.
Not to worry, your suggestion of using the attachments for those types of quotes will work out better. So I will do that and use Nitro Pdf for the short quote.
@dalacor, are you using custom theme which has custom font in it? It’s true that font in generated PDF is different from the font you see on the screen but the difference should be marginal if you are using default fonts.
It is very subtle, but it looks more polished when coming out in the Nitro Pdf format. I am not concerned about it, as I am going with Tut’s suggestion of using a word attachment to create the bulk text and using Manager to just put the prices in. I think the reason that I am more aware of it, is because I have been doing a lot of marketing and graphic design over the last year, so I am more aware of how just changing the font can make a document look 90’s style or modern, more readable, less readable etc.
The difference that I see is that the look in Nitro PDF just looks more polished and comes across looking more modern.
Don’t worry about it. I will use Tut’s suggestion of attachments and that solves my problem.
Could it be just a matter of what you are used to?
By the way, the font Manager is using for PDF generator is “Noto” which is universal font for all languages. I found that when relying on fonts users have installed on their computers gives very inconsistent results and difficult to debug problems.
I would say the biggest differences is more the size of the font (manger defaults to size 9, but the others default to size 10) and the colour of the font. Instead of being solid black, its a slightly lighter black.
The modern trend is to move away from solid black for fonts on websites, brochures you name it.
I don’t know about printing to paper as I am not doing that. I am printing to pdf and emailing to the clients. I hardly print out on paper anything anymore! But yes the resulting pdf is solid black for the font colour in the Manager PDF
Install this PDF Xchange Editor and use the print button in manager and select the xchange pdf printer and you will see the difference. Regards
