Printing to a PDF file

[Malcolm Bull]

Something strange is happening when I print a document - notably an AOL email - using a PDF-handling program, such as PDf Creator / PDFlite / NitroPDF.

Although the document is fairly small, only about half a page of text or less, with all 3 programs the resultant PDF file is huge (typically about 500 pages).

Am I missing something? and doing something wrong?  Is it AOL?  Any other free software I should try?

Any constructive help would be most welcome

[ringarosy]

What OS are you using and which version?
Have you recently upgraded your OS?
Are you using wifi or cable to print?
Have you actually printed out anything or is your preview telling you it is 500 pages?

[Malcolm Bull]

Thanks for the response.

I'm on Windows 7.  I haven't upgraded the OS.  I am only producing the PDF file at this stage, so there question of Wifi / cable is irrelevant.  When I did try to print the PDF document, it just threw out blank page after blank page.

To confuse things further, I just tried cut-and-paste to move the text to OpenOffice and print to a PDF file from there and it works perfectly.

[Midase]

Is the document actually in PDF format, or are you trying to print an office style document as a PDF?

[Malcolm Bull]

As I said, the problem appeared when I was trying to print an AOL email, not a PDF document

[Midase]

That I would suggest is the problem. The document needs to be in PDF format from the start. Why can you not print directly to your printer from the email?

[LauraTucker]

Are there any options available when you print to PDF? Such as just printing the text in the mail? I use a mac so am unsure about possible Windows options when it comes to this kind of thing. I know when I print from some programs to PDF that you can choose the content that is to be printed. Could there be a hidden option somewhere perhaps?

[Malcolm Bull]

I don't see why you say

The document needs to be in PDF format from the start. Why can you not print directly to your printer from the email?

I have an AOL email the text of which I want to convert to a PDF document, using a PDF-handling program, such as PDf Creator / PDFlite / NitroPDF.  As you imply, I can, of course, send it directly to the printer, but I don't want that; I want it in PDF form.

[RJ_Paton]

There will always be additional pages when an email is "printed" as a PDF document - although 500 does seem excessive. As an experiment I tried converting a few simple emails and they generally worked out at around 12 pages in pdf format for every page (or screen view) in the actual email. Some pages were blank some had only a few words on them it all depends on the set up of the email reader (and of course the content).