Glenn Ryan Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 Hello All, I see now that digital subscribers get access to a digital copy of the free plans which is awesome however when I went to the digital archive and download the plans they are only the size of an A4 page. Is there a way to get the digital copy without having to try and resize the PDF to the right size. To be able to resize the PDF requires the full copy of Adobe Acrobat which comes at a cost. Or am I missing something here? Cheers, Glenn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perttime Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 Did you set Acrobat reader (or browser) to view at 100%? PDF files can be resized in many graphics programmes. Inkscape is free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outrunner Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 When you print from Acrobat Reader there an option to alter the size as a percentage, if it's bigger than the available paper size you can tile across many sheets of paper or take it to your local copy shop and they will print it whatever size you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Christy Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 18 minutes ago, Outrunner said: When you print from Acrobat Reader there an option to alter the size as a percentage, if it's bigger than the available paper size you can tile across many sheets of paper or take it to your local copy shop and they will print it whatever size you like. Copy shops (at least, around here!) won't copy them if there is any copyright information on them. I tried to get my "Stringalong" plans copied, as they hadn't aged well and are no longer listed The copy shop wouldn't touch them... -- Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kc Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 (edited) Adobe Acrobat is free and the later versions have better features. If Acrobat is used to print at 100 percent it seems to come out exactly to size in both horizontal and vertical dimensions when printed on my HP printer ( for plans from Outerzone - I have not tried the RCME plans yet ). Other browsers etc do not necessarily come out exactly right size. With the later Acrobat Reader versions it is easy to highlight certain features like wing ribs and just print those if required. Or select 'Poster' to 'tile' print whole plan to A4 ( one of the options ) and select only those A4 sheets that are wanted. Also select the option to put in cut marks which makes it easy to sellotape the A4 prints together. Perhaps set 'Overlap' at .5 inch Edited January 12, 2023 by kc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin b Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 Peter. P.M. sent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Ryan Posted January 12, 2023 Author Share Posted January 12, 2023 Ok maybe I didn't explain myself well. When I downloaded the plans they only downloaded at the size of an A4 page. There was no options to save it as a 100% size or anything like that. It just downloaded as an 8"x11" page. I'm using the Page Suite online magazine reader that the Modelflying website takes you to when you click on the Digital Archives page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outrunner Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 1 hour ago, Glenn Ryan said: Ok maybe I didn't explain myself well. When I downloaded the plans they only downloaded at the size of an A4 page. There was no options to save it as a 100% size or anything like that. It just downloaded as an 8"x11" page. I'm using the Page Suite online magazine reader that the Modelflying website takes you to when you click on the Digital Archives page. Download the PDF file and open it in Acrobat Reader (free) click on print and then you can choose scaling options and paper size etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Ryan Posted January 12, 2023 Author Share Posted January 12, 2023 Right ok then. So just to clarify then, the digital plans are not offered in full size. They are only offered in the reduced size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Ryan Posted January 12, 2023 Author Share Posted January 12, 2023 11 hours ago, kc said: Adobe Acrobat is free and the later versions have better features. If Acrobat is used to print at 100 percent it seems to come out exactly to size in both horizontal and vertical dimensions when printed on my HP printer ( for plans from Outerzone - I have not tried the RCME plans yet ). Other browsers etc do not necessarily come out exactly right size. With the later Acrobat Reader versions it is easy to highlight certain features like wing ribs and just print those if required. Or select 'Poster' to 'tile' print whole plan to A4 ( one of the options ) and select only those A4 sheets that are wanted. Also select the option to put in cut marks which makes it easy to sellotape the A4 prints together. Perhaps set 'Overlap' at .5 inch Yes Outerzone plans are fine when you download them and go to print them. The problem here is that the plans offered under our subscription are not full size plans. They are only the size of an A4 page. It is then up to us readers to accurately resize the page and print them. Seems like a potential recipe for disaster if you ask me. Sure it is awesome that the plans are offered to us digitally but the execution of the process is a little flawed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Stephenson Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 Glenn, You might find there's a difference between opening a PDF file in a browser and opening it in acrobat reader. There are more options as to what to do with the file once in the reader. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Ryan Posted January 12, 2023 Author Share Posted January 12, 2023 14 minutes ago, Andy Stephenson said: Glenn, You might find there's a difference between opening a PDF file in a browser and opening it in acrobat reader. There are more options as to what to do with the file once in the reader. Yes it is in acrobat reader that I am looking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Stephenson Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 It looks like this problem should be taken up with the magazine editor, as it doesn't seem a lot of use how it's formatted. If it's published with the intention of being built from, it should be scaled appropriately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Ryan Posted January 13, 2023 Author Share Posted January 13, 2023 1 minute ago, Andy Stephenson said: It looks like this problem should be taken up with the magazine editor, as it doesn't seem a lot of use how it's formatted. If it's published with the intention of being built from, it should be scaled appropriately. And that was my thoughts exactly. We shouldn't have to worry about trying to get the right size on our end. Take for example if someone buys a short kit from Sarik to build this plane and they print the plans but the print is not exactly perfect then there'll be discrepancies and potential build issues. I don't know how to talk to the editors but yeah perhaps it is something that they should be made aware of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Ryan Posted January 13, 2023 Author Share Posted January 13, 2023 I have just been speaking to a friend and he is a digital subscriber too. He downloaded the plans and he has the same issue with them being the size of an A4 page. He has tried to scale them up to the right size however because he has had to enlarge the size when printing all of the lines are enlarged leaving you with a thick fuzzy line. Not a thin, smooth line like you would get from the printed plans in the magazine. That's not going to work. Especially if you plan to cut your own kit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Ryan Posted January 13, 2023 Author Share Posted January 13, 2023 I'm not trying to be negative here either. I think the offering of the digital plans is a great thing however I just think the execution is a little off at this stage. If we can be given the plans at 100% of the original size and not have to worry about trying to scale them to the right size then they are onto a winner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Gray Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 6 hours ago, Glenn Ryan said: He has tried to scale them up to the right size however because he has had to enlarge the size when printing all of the lines are enlarged leaving you with a thick fuzzy line. Not a thin, smooth line like you would get from the printed plans in the magazine. That's not going to work. Especially if you plan to cut your own kit The PDF is a raster image not vector so is really just a low resolution picture of the original. If you scale it up you will get pixelated (fuzzy) lines, how much fuzziness will depend on the resolution of the PDF. If you look at the Kestrel it is a really poor copy of the drawings, I was interested in these as I want to make a foam version so tried importing the PDF into CAD but, in the end, gave up. I will get a hard copy of the drawing and work with that instead. Ideally, if the mag had vectorised PDFs that would be great but I don’t see that happening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Turner 12 Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 Vectorised PDFs would be great as they are also easy to pull into inscape and then laser cut, bitmaps usually mean you have to re draw. If they manage to do this it would be great for all subscribers (paper or Digital) to be able to get hold of the drawings as it would make CNC so much easier. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Stephenson Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 The paper plans published old-style were always printed in a buildable form, so it seems the digital subscribers aren't getting the same value as the paper subscribers are getting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Fry Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 Actually I quite like it, gives me a little picture of the plan to make my mind up if I want to build it. And if I do want to build it, I will buy the full price version of the plan, nicer paper, better spacing of components, when the build is about to start. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kc Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 All the people who submit plans to Outerzone etc seem to manage to scan them to a pdf which prints alright at 100 percent so why cannot RCME do it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Gray Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 Hopefully this will go some way to explain it! I scanned a part of the Hanky Plank paper plan, the first image of the left was scanned at a resolution of 75 the one on the right 1200. I have then zoomed in by the same amount on both and you should be able to see that the quality is far better on the right hand image than the left. In photography the same thing applies, save the photo at a high resolution and you will be able to zoom in far more before the picture gets 'fuzzy'. The best solution for us digital subscribers would be for the vectorised PDFs to be available to download as scaling up or down makes no difference to the quality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barryt Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 These A4 PRO plans are worth up to 17GBP each! Hoping its a mistake. If not, goodbye RCM&E from me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Gray Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 Approx £6 for a back issue. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Ryan Posted January 14, 2023 Author Share Posted January 14, 2023 20 hours ago, Ron Gray said: Hopefully this will go some way to explain it! I scanned a part of the Hanky Plank paper plan, the first image of the left was scanned at a resolution of 75 the one on the right 1200. I have then zoomed in by the same amount on both and you should be able to see that the quality is far better on the right hand image than the left. In photography the same thing applies, save the photo at a high resolution and you will be able to zoom in far more before the picture gets 'fuzzy'. The best solution for us digital subscribers would be for the vectorised PDFs to be available to download as scaling up or down makes no difference to the quality. Ron, what you're saying is exactly right, however unless we get vectorised PDF's the next best option would be to download the PDF's, re-scan it back in at the highest of possible resolution (1200dpi or something high like that) then resize it so we don't lose the clarity. Yes that would probably work but geez it's a lot of mucking around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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