[scribus] export part of a page <- Crop pdf file with manually modifying /MediaBox

[Jonas Bechtel]

On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 09:16:53 -0500
Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> wrote with subject
"Re: [scribus] export part of a page":

> On 2/2/20 1:02 AM, Uwe Saßnowski wrote:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I like to export a part of a page only. From one page I like to
> > export 3 single pages (left, middle, right). Is it possible? Thanks
> > for your help!
> > 
> 
> Hi Uwe,
> 
> I presume you're talking about 3-fold pages and Scribus 1.4.x, since
> this feature no longer exists in the 1.5.x series. Although it may
> sound like a 3-fold page is a single page divided into 3 parts, these
> are actually 3 individual pages that happen to be displayed
> side-by-side. If you printed them out on your own printer they would
> print out as individual pages. When you export, just select the
> appropriate page under Export Range in the export dialog, 1 for left,
> 2 for middle, 3 for right.
> 
> Greg
> 


I received a PM from TO with a big pdf file.

For me it looks rather like one big page, and the Creator attribute
in pdf file hints for Scribus 1.5.5


So the best way depends on what you need when: If the final print shop
needs split pages, I recommend to rearrange document in scribus.

If you just want to print it out once with you printer, I can suggest
following. Don't worry, it looks complicated, but actually it just
changes one number:


1. Copy your file to Brochure_M.pdf and Brochure_R.pdf
(I will just make an example for Brochure_M.pdf)


2. Download Notepad++ or ProgrammersNotepad for your Windows.
(You can make it with pre-installed Notepad but it will all be in one
line and won't make fun.)


3. Open Brochure_M.pdf with *Notepad*
WARNING: If you alter a pdf file, each information segment (= "obj")
must keep it's length.


4. Got to the first place where /MediaBox appears. There's the original
line:

/MediaBox [0 0 1723.78205 898.90016]


5. Replace the first value "0" with "283.5" AND cut the last number
"898.90016" to the short number "898.9"

/MediaBox [283.5 0 1723.78205 898.9]

Explanation: in the first step you have made the line four bytes longer
("8", "3", ".", "5"), in the second step you have made it four bytes
shorter again ("0", "0", "1", "6")


6. Repeat this for the second page (there's a second /MediaBox in
your pdf, I mean this one)


7. Press "Save" button. My pdf program then shows a cut version of
Brochure_M.pdf Maybe you also have to change the other Boxes, maybe
"ArtBox"?


8. How did I get to "283.5"?
100 mm is 3.93701 Inch (says my search engine)
1 Inch is 72 pdf-units
-> 100 mm = 3.93701 * 72 pdf-units = 283.46472 pdf-units

I know that 100 mm is not what you need but 100mm is easily
re-calculated.




Full result looks like that:
274 0 obj
<<
/Type /Page
/Parent 3 0 R
/MediaBox [283.5 0 1723.78205 898.9]
/BleedBox [20.00126 20.00126 1703.78079 878.89890]
/CropBox [0 0 1723.78205 898.90016]
/TrimBox [28.50520 28.50520 1695.27685 870.39496]
/ArtBox [28.50520 28.50520 1695.27685 870.39496]
/Rotate 0
/Contents 272 0 R
/Group 273 0 R
>>
endobj


9. Now you have to do this with actual numbers, fitting for M and R
segment, and the M file has to be cropped to ~40cm before exporting, as
you already did for L side.



For very limited time I upload Brochure_M.pdf to
http://jbechtel.de/site/dist/FLINDS/

md5sum (original and new:)

ba4ed9ee053cee8495e93aaed1508499  Brochure.pdf
53215b30f19608faa30657be0396ec66  Brochure_M.pdf



Best Regards
 Jonas