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Hi, I am converting a Word.doc (A4 size) to PDF from Word. The resultant PDF has the background image tiled. Even when I select a gradient background in Word, the PDF conversion does not show the background as it displays in Word. What size does the background image have to be (in the Word doc) so that it isn't tiled in the PDF please? Or is this a flaw in Word to PDF conversion?
You have to look at the way Word communicates with the printer driver.
In the case of the on-board gradients, those gradients are tiny tiled images which Word uses to display a gradient anyway, so the Acrobat conversion engine is seeing them correctly! :) This is all down to the difference in how Word interprets those small tiles for screen display and for print display.
Bob Buckland
MS Office system products MVP:
"When you print to a PDF printer check the printer advanced properties. If you're printing at 600 PPI then the graphic is 'seen' as being only 2 1/3"W, (1600pixel width divided by 600 PPI resolution) so you see it repeating as vertically 'banded'. If the PDF is intended for onscreen viewing you can reduce the PPI (or dots per inch) in the printer properties to 96 to remove the banding."
So, you can get a Word-converted PDF to display the background properly (or very nearly anyways), by changing the print resolution in Word for PDF. In Word click ofice Button > Print > Print > Select the Adobe PDF Printer > Click Properties > Paper Quality Tab > Click Advanced > Under the Graphic Tab change the Paper Quality to 72dpi.However.. and it is a big however.. all the other images and text do not display at all well in the converted PDF when the above changes are made in Word! So I guess, having solved it, I won't be using it.
I ought to add that I am aware that the background of a document can be changed in Acrobat itself, this doesn't help if you are designing your document in Word. Particularly if you are wanting to align text to elements in the background.
Here's hoping that Microsoft or Adobe can find a compelling solution in the not-too-distant-future.
If the web revolutionsied business and entertainment, the PDF is revolutionising "the document"