At my day job, there has been a very minor issue that I’ve been trying to solve since 2015. This relates to PDF Proof forms that are prepared via Crystal Reports via our MIS. Upon opening the PDF in Adobe Acrobat, an annoying “feature” from Crystal Reports forces the window to resize itself to the size of the proof form.

A customer probably won’t notice, but for me this is mildly annoying as I constantly have to resize the screen to access Acrobat’s toolbars.

Droplet to the rescue?

I figured a solution may be to make a preflight droplet that will run a preflight that doesn’t check for anything, but makes one custom fixup to turn off the resize to window checkbox. Upon making the droplet, there is the ability to adjust these features.

However, after making this droplet and testing it out with a proof form, I’d notice that the problem persisted.

Unfortunately, it looks like this droplet will only turn the resize to window feature on, rather than disable it.

An Acrobat Action?

It is possible to disable the resize to window using an Acrobat Action.

Unfortunately, the PDF first has to be opened in Acrobat to run the action, and the moment the PDF is opened, the window has already resized.

An Enfocus Pitstop Action?

Again, it is possible to disable the resize to window using an Action using the Enfocus Pitstop Professional plug-in .

But once again, the same issue occurs: the PDF first has to be opened in Acrobat to run the action, and the moment the PDF is opened, the window has already resized.

I am aware that any system running an Enfocus pitstop server as part of its workflow such as a printing RIP (e.g. Fuji XMF or Esko) can add this Enfocus Pitstop Action to their processing hot folder, so this is one way of implementing a UI-free way of applying this fix.

Open the PDF in a text editor.

As demonstrated in a previous article, it is possible to open a PDF in a text editor. I thought I would give this a try, so I dragged a PDF into BBEdit.

Once open, I can see on line nine of this PDF the words /Fitwindow true. I’ll delete the line and resave the file.

Now, when I open the PDF, it opens at the default view. Success!

Isn’t this just as annoying?

It is not a great solution, but it’s a solution that works for me, for now. I’m looking at ways of writing an automator app or applescript to make a hot folder that will open the PDF in BBEdit, remove line nine, save and close.

Elgato Stream Deck to the rescue!

However, I am a user of an Elgato Stream Deck. There is a feature of the Stream Deck that allows for a multi action to be run from the click of a button. To demonstrate this, I’ve made a multi action and assigned a button from a free Elgato library.

While the Stream Deck can run multi actions, the limitation is to actions that the Stream Deck itself will let you choose. Luckily I can map keyboard shortcuts, called Hotkeys here.

I have to do the first part myself, that is open the PDF into BBEdit. But from here, I can run an eight step action that will delete line nine.

In order to make sure that the action only deletes line nine, I make sure that the keyboard shortcuts always begin at the same place. The actions are as follows:

• Go home (Command + Home)
• Call the go to line command (Command + J)
• Type the line number to navigate to (9)
• Confirm the selection (Enter)
• Select the line (Shift + down arrow)
• Delete the line (delete)
• Save the file (Command + S)
• Close the file (Command + W)

Solved, but not fixed.

Ultimately, this jerry-rigged solution works for me, but ideally if improvements of the following were made by Acrobat’s software developers, that would be great:

• Allow keyboard shortcuts to be customised in Adobe Acrobat like they are in Adobe InDesign. While I have my frustrations with InDesign, its ability to rework keyboard shortcuts to nearly every available function is the envy of other Adobe software.
• Allow the checkboxes within the droplet option have the ability to not just turn a feature on, but to turn it off as well. I’m not sure if this is a bug or a feature with the resize to window checkbox.
• Consider the possibility of droplets not just for preflight checklists but also for Acrobat actions.