MS Pub 03 to PDF expands page size; adds blank pages

Creating a 176-page book in MS Publisher 03. Set to portrait. Finished page size is 5.25 x 8. Need usable text area as 5 x 7.5, so created single pages as 5.58 x 8.25. Set outside, top, and bottom margin to .375; and since required gutter is .4, I set inside margin for each page to .2. Set up as a booklet; but viewing single pages.

I print to Adobe PDF. Changed Layout orientation to Portrait. Changed default page size to 5.58 x 8.25.

Problems: Reviewing the outputted PDF at 100 percent, it has increased my page size - making my usable text area now 5.5 x 8.75 - and it inserts a blank page in bewteen each of my pages. I have tried reviewing all settings with Adobe and with Publisher 03. I have Adobe Acrobat 9.0 Pro Extended on the my computer as well.

All help welcomed. Thank you.

Also: Printer recommended the following: Edit default settings, change compatability to Acrobat 5.0. Under Object Level Compression: Choose Off. Under Auto-Rotate Pages: Choose Off. All other settings should remain the same. Under the Images tab: Leave the Bicubic Downsampling but change the resolution. Color Images: downsample to 305 for images above 320 and change the compression to JPEG Maximum. Grayscale Images: downsample to 305 for images above 320 and change the compression to JPEG Maximum. Monochrome images can be left as is. Under the fonts tab: Deselect the "Subset embedded fonts" option. Select ALL of the fonts under Font Source and add them to Always Embed. Under Color tab: Under color management policies select Leave Color Unchanged. Under Advanced and Standards, Leave all settings as they are. At the bottom of the screen, click Save As. We recommend naming this job option. Click save and then OK on the settings window. The second dropdown is for Security – make sure this is set to None. The third dropdown is for Adobe PDF Output Folder – you may set this as you wish. The fourth dropdown is for Page size – select the appropriate page size per our guidelines (create a new size if needed)
Deselect the option "Do not send fonts to Adobe PDF". Click OK.