Wrong document size on exporting to PDF (also in Affinity Designer)

[Lupurus]

I have a problem with exporting to PDF. If I choose File > Export and then the preset "PDF (for print)", there is always + 0.01 cm at the width and height (for example 14.8 x 21.0 cm becomes 14.81 x 21.01 cm). This also brings a small white stripe at the right side of the document.

If I open the document with Affinity Designer and then choose the Export Persona, the document size is correct. Unfortunately there is no Export Persona in Affinity Publisher, so I always have to open Affinity Designer. By the way: It happes in Affinity Designer as well, if you choose File > Export.

I'm pretty sure, that this is not a real problem because I cannot imagine, that this is visible after printing. But I just wanted to mention it.

[MickRose]

I think this has to do with the DPI setting in the Document Setup. If you make sure this value is 300 I think the problem will go away. On the other hand if you choose a rediculously low DPI value you can export PDFs whose page sizes turn out to be a lot higher than the Publisher page size. I have a feeling that at a deep level all Affinity products use pixels for measuring and using a low DPI value can feed back into slight (or no so slight) measurement errors.

[Lupurus]

Hi, thanks for your answer. It has nothing to do with the DPI, because I'm using the exact same preset ("PDF (for print)") in both cases.

[MickRose]

It might be worth removing all the content and then uploading the file here.

[Pauls]

and the extra space is not down to the bleed setting?

[thomaso]

On 3/23/2021 at 12:19 PM, Lupurus said:

there is always + 0.01 cm at the width and height

Do you get this with all kind of content? – I notice that an object in page size which gets rasterized on export (e.g. a vector object with an applied filter, adjustment or blend mode) can cause such a size variation on export, whereas a plain vector or a plain raster image (photo) doesn't cause this inaccuracy.

For instance here a vector rectangle with a inner glow …

versus a plain photo:

I vague remind it was discussed before as (also ?) being related to decimals of pixels, e.g.:

[Patricia Tiffany Morris]

EXactly For 10 days, trying to upload a doc to KDP, they keep telling me all the odd sizes of my PDF's . Today I took a video of the crazy weirdness. THE LOCK aspect ratio is NOT locked . It doesn't stay locked and yet you can change one value of the 4 dimensions and the other 3 boxes' values change automatically to strange numbers. Each export the number change. AND each bleed, page size or spread size randomly fixes some pages, but not all, even when clicking ALL spreads or trying to change the margins or bleed with the lock. So 10 days of troubleshooting blaming KDP, it is AFFINITY PUblisher and now my program won't run without immediately crashing no matter what I do.  I wish I could upload the video here. 

[Tahnee Pitter-Duncan]

Hi has this issue been solved? I'm dealing with the same thing. I've been trying to export my files and all the pages differ in sizes as OP stated. This is frustrating

[HoueK]

Any news? Guys it's really annoying bug...

[Peter Burt]

I have just had same problem PDF export preset 'for print' size completely wrong when importing to corel draw for cutting vinyl.

However changing preset to 'digital high quality' now perfect.

Hope this helps others.

[Old Bruce]

41 minutes ago, Peter Burt said:

... PDF export preset 'for print' size completely wrong when importing to corel draw for cutting vinyl.

However changing preset to 'digital high quality'...

This will be due to the DPI settings.

[Peter Burt]

DPI was set to 300 on both occasions, also how does changing DPI setting change the size of a vector?

[Old Bruce]

28 minutes ago, Peter Burt said:

DPI was set to 300 on both occasions, also how does changing DPI setting change the size of a vector?

Hmmm, I shall have to rethink my thinking. I am unfamiliar with Corel Draw and with vinyl cutting as well.

[Estrella]

I'm working with an Affinity Designer document and a Silhouette cutting machine. I have a graphic layer, a cut lines layer, and a registration layer. I print the A.D. graphic with registration layer, and then I export to PDF the cut lines layer. This PDF has to match the print version exactly so that the lines to be cut are in the proper spot on the graphic. There are 4 short horizontal lines to be cut. Two about an inch apart in the upper half of the document, and two on the lower half. The two on the upper half always cut in the correct location. The lower two lines are cut too high. I've tried dropping them in the document but just can't seem to get it right. Unfortunately Silhouette doesn't read A.D. I'm thinking that exporting to PDF must be slightly shrinking my document or that I need to export in a different way. I was excited to read the suggestion above about exporting as digital high quality and 300 dpi, but that didn't make any difference. Any help? Essentially, my pdf has to match the AD document exactly.

[Peter Burt]

Just a suggestion, try exporting as an EPS if Silhouette software can use it. Also could your horizontal lines extend beyond the width of your graphic visible area, if so you could make cut boxes instead of just lines, if not have you grouped the horizontal lines, this may help.  Maybe upload your AD file so others could have a look for you.

[Estrella]

Thanks for the ideas. I tried EPS. Silhouette won't read it. I tried .jpg and .png (silly me- no vector to cut), tried .svg: it came into silhouette a strange mess of 4 miniature lines. I decided maybe it was something odd about this particular document. I have lots of these documents with the same basic layers. I tried a second document sled:hen. To my astonishment, saving those cut lines to pdf and importing to Silhouette provided no cutlines to cut at all, a blank page, even though they are clearly visible on the pdf. So then I tried a third document drumcap. I grouped the cut lines, exported as digital high quality pdf, imported into Silhouette, and they cut PERFECTLY. Three different results from documents that are basically the same build. I've attached the first document here, of frogs, and the third document, of drum and cap that did work. Oh, just added the 2nd one, sled:hen. I'm mystified. Also, have to leave shortly for a week, but will be able to read emails but not work with cutting machine until I return. I so appreciate any suggestions.

doublefrog print.afdesign drumcap.afdesign sled:hen.afdesign

[PixelEngineer]

Regarding Lupurus original post:

What I am writing here is in relation to Affinity Publisher only and is related to what Lupurus posted at the beginning of this thread.
 

Very interesting. I can clearly see what is happening regarding Lupurus's post. I didn't see it at first because I really needed to zoom in.

 

In relation to Lupurus observation, it appears to me that this is a "bug"  in the program that only affects the ISO A and ISO B sized document standards when outputted to PDF. At least this is what I am seeing for now. Perhaps there are other variables. It seems that this would be an easy fix for the developers.

For Lupurus's situation I was able to recreate the issue with predictable results. The PDF appears to scale outward towards the bottom right by the measurements Lupurus posted upon PDF output. It is as if the A5 document was scaled to a larger size revealing extra space that was not there before due to the scaling of the document no fault of the user from what I see.  

What's working for me in my tests:

ANSI, ARCH, North America Letter, legal and most document sizes for industry book standards and the other built in templates that Serif provides do not seem to be affected by this and work perfectly in my tests. At least that is what I am noticing so far. 

At the time of this writing, I am currently running Affinity Publisher ver. 1.10.5.1342 on a Windows machine

To recreate the issue regarding the ISO A and B standards, Try this: 
So you can see this clearly, make sure you set the bleed to zero as a baseline and follow the instructions below so that you can see what is happening with the ISO A and ISO B document standards that upon PDF output, introduces a very tiny yet significant offset. 

1. Create an A5 document with no bleed. Or any document of your choosing in the ISO A and B size standards range only.
2. Use the rectangle shape and extend it out fully to the edge of your document and give it a color other than white. 
3. Only extend the shape to the very edge not beyond. Make sure you enable snapping so that you know you reached the edge.
4. Export it to whatever PDF format you'd like. (Remember not to export Bleed in this test).
5. Open that exported PDF and zoom in as far as you can on the lower right corner. You should now see what Lupurus was talking about.
   

Snapshot represents bottom right of PDF output at well over 1000+ percent. White region represents the actual document and the orange area represents where it was located before it scaled during the PDF output.

This A5 document no longer has the exact measurement it started with. The resized ratio is same but it has added .01cm on the bottom and .01cm on the right. 

The white area that you are looking at represents the actual document that has been scaled on PDF output. Previously before converting to PDF the A5 document was extended out only to the orange region in the lower right of the document before it was exported to PDF. Incidentally, the top and the left of the document remained unchanged.

As I mentioned, I believe this only affects the ISO A and B series standards documents output to PDF from what I tested.  Unless there is something that I'm missing here. It could be that is may be clue to solving some other problems that certain users are experiencing in their printing workflows.

[PixelEngineer]

On 3/23/2021 at 10:39 AM, Pauls said:

and the extra space is not down to the bleed setting?

Perhaps this will help the developers

[Estrella]

On 6/12/2022 at 10:34 AM, Peter Burt said:

I have just had same problem PDF export preset 'for print' size completely wrong when importing to corel draw for cutting vinyl.

However changing preset to 'digital high quality' now perfect.

Hope this helps others.

Peter, could you detail settings for how you did this, please? Did you go to Export Persona in Affinity first? Was the setting then PDF, preset digital high quality, Raster DPI 300, area whole document? Also, is "Don't export layers hidden by Export persona" checked?

The errors I'm experiencing are about 3/16" too high by the bottom of my cut page.

Thanks!

[Peter Burt]

Hi, no to export persona, just file, export.

[PixelEngineer]

On 7/26/2022 at 5:03 PM, Digraph said:

The errors I'm experiencing are about 3/16" too high by the bottom of my cut page.

This seems like a different problem from the original post. But possibly related in some ways.

Hi, just to clarify when you mention registration area, correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like your are talking about everything under printer marks options upon PDF export. The numbers that were offset showed up in some of my calculations on another problem I was troubleshooting.

Is this an issue regarding a cutting machine and the PDF offset interfering with your workflow upon export, when you include printer marks checked?

Try this if you need crop marks and see if this correct your problem:

Upon PDF export. Uncheck include "Color bars" and then uncheck Include "Page information". If you leave both or only have one of these and your are cutting based on the entire PDF registration area your center will be offset.

If you need crop marks:
For export you can check crop marks and register marks either one or both and your document will still be centered with great accuracy provided you are not working from the ISO A or B standard that seemed to offset by a microscopic .01cm if you need to be that accurate.

Also, If you notice Peter Burt had Include Printer Marks unchecked which would meet the requirement for a properly centered page.

 

[Estrella]

Ah, no. The registration marks I was referring to are applied by the Silhouette Connect cutting machine software when using Adobe Illustrator, that allowed sending from Adobe to Silhouette for print, then cut, operations. Unfortunately the Connect software doesn't work with Affinity. I'm now opening those documents made in .ai in Affinity and they have the Silhouette marks on them still. I've contacted Silhouette and suggested they might consider upgrading their Connect software to allow direct import into Silhouette from Affinity, but that doesn't help the immediate problem. 

So, "Include Printer's Marks" and everything under it is unchecked, just as Peter Burt has suggested. It begins to look like I'm doing everything right in the Affinity software, and have to figure out how to get it imported into Silhouette while preserving layers for cutting.  I'm thinking if I can import everything into Silhouette, maybe I can print then cut from both from inside Silhouette instead of printing from Affinity and cutting from Silhouette. 

I appreciate everyone's help, and am reassured that at least I'm doing the Affinity part properly.

[DaKo]

Hi!

It's been more than one and half years since Lupurus's original post - and this has still not been fixed. I'm using Publisher 1.10.5 on Mac OS Monterey (12.6). As seen in the attached screenshots, I'm exporting a single object - a black box - which is exactly 100 x 100 mm. The document is exactly 100 x 100 mm at 300 dpi, no bleed. Using one of Publisher's default export settings - PDF (for print) - the resulting PDF (300 dpi) is exactly 100 x 100 mm but the black box isn't- it has shrunk by one pixel to the right and at the bottom respectively. If I mount the PDF in a new 100 x 100 mm document, the box keeps shrinking - so know my original box is missing 2 pixels to the right and at the bottom. I'm attaching a screenshot of the fourth generation of the box and it's pretty clear what's happening. If I would repeat this scheme a couple of hundred times or so the box will have disappeared. I have also tested rasterizing the PDF in Affinity Photo where 100 x 100 mm (300 dpi) equals 1182 x 1182 px. If I crop off the empty right and bottom edges the remaining black area will only measure 1181 x 1181 px. Case proved that one pixel to the right and at the bottom were not being included in the PDF.

This might seem like a neglectable error but, as pointed out by other posters, can (most probably will) cause complaints from serious printers where this will give preflight warnings etc. It's also highly annoying when mounting the PDF as a PDF passthrough.

THIS IS A BUG AND IT NEEDS TO BE FIXED!

[HoueK]

It's so annoying - creating new A4 format document which is 210 mm x 297 mm. Export new empty document to "PDF (for print)" and the pdf size is 210,1 mm x 297 mm.

Finally I can't add this file to my printing company web form, coz document have wrong size...

[3rdDay]

SOLUTION: I had a similar problem and came across something that worked for me. Move the artboards (while in the Designer Persona) so that they are perfectly aligned with one another (touching) – with 'snapping' on, of course, so that they are PERFECTLY aligned. Then head back to the Export Persona and delete any slices (under the 'Slices' tab to the right) that exist. Press 'Layers' (to the left of the 'Slices' tab) and select all of them and then click 'Create Slides' (below). Then head back to the 'Slides' and ensure they are all the correct size and export.

I hope you find this works or another solution!