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I need to print some mathematical articles. But the margin is too large, so I want to edit it to solve this problem.

One way is converting it to Microsoft Word (I think). But I tried some programs and they give very bad conversions.

How would you solve it? I am sure that some of you encounter this problem regularly.

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    Too large for what? Can't you just rescale in the print dialog box? Jul 30, 2011 at 3:42
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    This is a site for mathematics Q&A. I'm not aware of any way to convert .pdf to .doc meaningfully, and if these articles are scans then you're even more screwed.
    – anon
    Jul 30, 2011 at 3:44
  • I took out the conversion part, there sure must be other methods that don't involve conversion to Word.
    – slhck
    Jul 30, 2011 at 10:32

8 Answers 8

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It’s an old thread, but I just stumbled on the same problem and didn’t want to install anything additional, so I suggest this: (building on what nmat says and the comment of slhck)

If you want to reduce margins, then, in the PDF reader you could with scaling to 110% and then print the new PDF the way you want on paper (single or both sided or multiple per page). With this solution you can only increase decrease all the margins (top, bottom, right and left) proportionally; i.e., you can not change only one margin.

Edit/Update: I came across Briss, a free (GNU GPL) and quite compact application (Java) you can download from SourceForge (briss-0.9 currently). It can remove the margins of PDFs and save the result. I’ve been using it for few months already.

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    Briss just cropped my PDF to the right size and removed excess page headers/footers. Aug 14, 2017 at 21:17
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You can use Briss, Pdfbooklet, Advanced pdf tools, Pdf scissors, Imposition studio, Inbooklet, Farrukh, Creo preps... None is perfect. Some have more options than other, some are very slow, some can create booklets, some are free. PD: Even Adobe Acrobat can crop margins.

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I think you should try to increase the margins without converting it to Word. Like you said, conversion usually provides bad results.

First, you could try to scale the PDF before printing. The print window has an option for that and if you set it at 95% the margins should increase. Another option is to edit the pdf. I found this article that explains how to increase the margins using PDFill.

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  • I think you meant to increase the print size (like, 110%) so that the margins are smaller.
    – slhck
    Jul 30, 2011 at 10:34
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Using Linux, try this:

Here's a Gist of a bash script that builds on the prev. Fixes a color compatibility problem (possibly specific to my pdf), and does some dependency checking.

https://gist.github.com/MichaelJCole/86e4968dbfc13256228a

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The program FinePrint will allow you to change the margins of PDF documents easily.

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    Welcome to Super User! Please read How do I recommend software for some tips as to how you should go about recommending software. You should provide at least a link, some additional information about the software itself, and how it can be used to solve the problem in the question.
    – DavidPostill
    Sep 2, 2021 at 21:08
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You can download this tool " free pdf to word doc converter " by hellopdf it's free and fast, faster than a web interface.

Edit in response of Comment:

It's very hard to set margin in the PDF files but I tried to find something and got the link given below try it hope it will help you. And if you convert it in .doc then you have to set margins manually.

Take a look here.
If you have Adobe Photoshop, go ahead and open your PDF file from there. Then try and print it there. You can adjust a lot like margins scale size etc without losing your PDF quality. Print-out is as clear as the original.

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In the adobe print set up box, choose "Print to PDF paper size" and select "none" for page scaling. The margins will be normal. Selecting "Fit to paper" always makes the margins too big.

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Before printing PDF file change settings. There must be Page Sizing and handling section. Select Actual size, then all margins will be as in the word document from what you made you pdf file.

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  • Can you be a little more specific with your detail, consider adding some reference and proof supporting what you state, and confirming this answer is not already answered in one of the existing answers on the post. Aug 30, 2017 at 1:16

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