New Printing Selected Pages From a PDF Information Page Posted

A new information page has been posted:

• Printing Selected Pages From a PDF
• (Short link: tiandi.info/pdf)

Here is the Introduction of this page:

This information page contains links to instructions for printing out selected pages from a PDF using a couple of the most common PC/Mac PDF-viewing apps.

As of this writing, early in 2014, more than half of the visits to the 3lines.org website are being made with tablets like the iPad and smaller mobile devices like the iPhone, and all signs indicate that this percentage will continue to grow rapidly. Suitably formatted Chinese language-assistive material (3-line, etc.) can just be viewed on such mobile devices without having to be printed out onto paper. This makes it much easier for users to have at their fingertips all the material they need, when they need it. It also saves users from the ongoing costs of the paper, ink/toner, and time and attention needed to print that material out onto paper.

Of course, for various reasons many still need or want to print out onto paper. However, they may not always need or want to print out an entire file at a time. This is especially the case with files that contain an entire publication rather than just a chapter of one. (Examples of files that contain an entire publication include the official Pīnyīn and Sidney Lau PDF files, and the existing unofficial Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn/Sidney Lau-English web pages and PDFs.) Even with a file that contains “only” a chapter’s worth of material, often users will only want to print out a few selected pages of it, rather than the whole thing.

Something that may understandably confuse some users is that with some PDFs, the page numbers shown in the content do not match with the page numbers that must be used for printing purposes. Also, some PDFs do not even have page numbers indicated in the content at all. For example, the official PDF files (English, Chinese, Pīnyīn, etc.) for the Jehovah’s Will brochure do not have visible page numbers, probably since the big Lesson numbers already provide strong indications of where one is in the publication. Another example is that the PDF files produced for more convenient printing of web pages like the Jehovah’s Will Brochure (Pīnyīn-English, Web, Scriptures) page omit visible page numbers in the content because:

1. The Lesson numbers already provide strong indications of where one is in the publication.
2. Commonly-used PDF-viewing apps clearly display the page numbers used for selecting pages to print, regardless of whether page numbers in the content match these, or even appear.
3. With the best overall way that could be found to produce the PDFs, the only way to add visible page numbers would have produced visually unattractive results.
4. With the best overall way that could be found to produce the PDFs, the only way to add visible page numbers would have added significantly to the number of pages that would have needed to be printed out, raising paper, ink/toner, and printing time costs for users.

The below information can help users to print out only selected pages from PDFs without unreasonable difficulty, even in cases such as those mentioned above.

“It’s Only a Paper Moon”

...is the title of a new post at tiandi.info. Here’s the text from the news feed:

...but spirit and truth are not just paper tigers.

To obtain the login information for tiandi.info, request e-mail notification of news regarding available resources, or if you have any questions or comments, you may e-mail me at waynerj@shaw.ca, providing information such as what group or congregation you’re with, who referred you to this site, etc.

Support for Various Mobile Devices Clarified

To further explain how the XLP-iPhone-A5 files may work well on a variety of mobile devices, the following is now included on the 3-Line Material on the iPhone and the iPod touch page:

It appears that more and more, the 3-line and pinyin PDF files will be used on computers, including mobile devices such as the iPhone, the iPod touch, and the iPad, rather than printed out on paper. The files named with “XLP-iPhone-A5” have the same content as the regular files, but they use A5 as the paper size. They are especially suited for display on devices such as the iPhone, the iPod touch, and other devices with similarly sized screens, such as Android phones.

The XLP-iPhone-A5 files should also be a good fit on 6" (15.2 cm) screen Kindles and other similarly sized devices, as well as on tablets with 7" (17.8 cm) screens, as long as these devices have PDF support. (Note that landscape orientation may work best, as explained below.) Some may prefer to use these files on larger mobile devices like the Kindle DX or the iPad as well.

Of course, while the XLP-iPhone-A5 files will be easier to read on mobile devices than the files that use A4/Letter as the paper size, the latter are able to fit more information onto each page—the XLP-iPhone-A5 files just give you more options as you decide which text size/screen size/device orientation/file navigation ease combination works best for you.

Similar information will also be added to download pages featuring XLP-iPhone-A5 files.