Rotating PDFs

[Carolyn Strecker]

Since upgrading to Reunion 11, I have had occasion to save a large number of pdfs from historical newspapers. Every single one of them looks fine when I open it in Preview or Adobe Reader, but every one of them is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise when it appears in Reunion's multimedia window. There is no option in the media window that I can find to rotate the pdfs. (There is such an option for jpgs).

Please advise. I expect I'm missing something obvious. Thanks.

Carolyn Yearick Strecker
Researching Yearick, Wolf, Strecker, Giles

[jbastin]

Re: Rotating PDFs

Since upgrading to Reunion 11, I have had occasion to save a large number of pdfs from historical newspapers. Every single one of them looks fine when I open it in Preview or Adobe Reader, but every one of them is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise when it appears in Reunion's multimedia window. There is no option in the media window that I can find to rotate the pdfs. (There is such an option for jpgs).

Please advise. I expect I'm missing something obvious. Thanks.

How did you save the PDFs from the newspaper pages? I had no trouble rotating PDF files in the Multimedia window in Family View, or when opening them in the Media Window.

In the Media window, the Rotate selection is in the Tools window (click the little hammer in the bar at the bottom of the window).

In Family View, right-clicking on the thumbnail image will open a contextual sub-menu with includes the Rotate command. (When I experimented with this, the Family View thumbnail on the rotated image changed from a thumbnail image of the newspaper to just a generic document image with a camera. The image rotates with further clicks on "Rotate" with or without the Option key, but there's no indication of the rotation in the Family View display, you have to go to the Media window to see the results).

Hope this helps.

[Carolyn Strecker]

Re: Rotating PDFs

How did you save the PDFs from the newspaper pages? I had no trouble rotating PDF files in the Multimedia window in Family View, or when opening them in the Media Window.

In the Media window, the Rotate selection is in the Tools window (click the little hammer in the bar at the bottom of the window).

In Family View, right-clicking on the thumbnail image will open a contextual sub-menu with includes the Rotate command. (When I experimented with this, the Family View thumbnail on the rotated image changed from a thumbnail image of the newspaper to just a generic document image with a camera. The image rotates with further clicks on "Rotate" with or without the Option key, but there's no indication of the rotation in the Family View display, you have to go to the Media window to see the results).

Hope this helps.

John, thanks for responding. I make the pdfs starting with using Grab to copy the window of material (mostly from Genealogybank.com and Newspapers.com web sites). I then open the resulting tiff with Preview, highlight (with colored boxes) the material I am interested in, and finally export each from Preview as a pdf (it takes on an Adobe icon) to my Reunion Photos folder. I add these pdfs to the family file by clicking on the plus sign in the family multimedia window and navigating to the pdf in the reunion Pictures folder.

The material is oriented properly when I save it in Preview, and when it's opened with Adobe Reader from my Reunion Pictures folder. But in the multimedia window all of them are rotated 90 degrees.

-->The "rotate" option in the tools menu or when I right click is greyed out.<--

If I right click a jpg, the rotate option is available.

It's getting frustrating. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Pdfs I saved before I upgraded to Reunion 11 (from 10) are oriented properly.

[Dennis J. Cunniff]

Re: Rotating PDFs

The material is oriented properly when I save it in Preview, and when it's opened with Adobe Reader from my Reunion Pictures folder. But in the multimedia window all of them are rotated 90 degrees.

I usually work with Abobe Acrobat, but I suspect this may also apply to Preview.

When you change the orientation from the View menu, you are only changing the way the program (Acrobat or Preview) *displays* the page. You aren't actually changing the orientation of the page within the file.

There is another command in Acrobat that actually changes the orientation of the page (in the Pages tab or shift-ctrl-R); there may or may not also be such a command in Preview.

Anyway, it sounds like Adobe and Preview are taking that "view" change into consideration on displaying the page, and Reunion isn't. So I would suggest asking Gregg or Frank if that's the case, or if I'm spouting utter nonsense.

The pdf format makes sense for multipage documents, and so specifying a "view" for each page also makes sense.

Using pdf format for a single-page image makes less sense; it only adds an outer envelope to that single-page image that is better saved as a .tif or .jpg

[Bob White]

Re: Rotating PDFs

.......There is another command in Acrobat that actually changes the orientation of the page (in the Pages tab or shift-ctrl-R); there may or may not also be such a command in Preview.....

No separate command in Preview. The whole document is rotated and automatically saved in the new perspective.

[Carolyn Strecker]

Re: Rotating PDFs

I usually work with Abobe Acrobat, but I suspect this may also apply to Preview.

When you change the orientation from the View menu, you are only changing the way the program (Acrobat or Preview) *displays* the page. You aren't actually changing the orientation of the page within the file.

There is another command in Acrobat that actually changes the orientation of the page (in the Pages tab or shift-ctrl-R); there may or may not also be such a command in Preview.

Anyway, it sounds like Adobe and Preview are taking that "view" change into consideration on displaying the page, and Reunion isn't. So I would suggest asking Gregg or Frank if that's the case, or if I'm spouting utter nonsense.

The pdf format makes sense for multipage documents, and so specifying a "view" for each page also makes sense.

Using pdf format for a single-page image makes less sense; it only adds an outer envelope to that single-page image that is better saved as a .tif or .jpg

Given your advice above, I will stop using pdf for saving these singe pages; however, that doesn't explain why the rotate function is greyed out on the ones I've already made. I think I'll email the Leisterpro folks to see if I can get an answer.

I have quite a few with this problem, but not so many that I can't go back and redo them when I make the time.

Thanks to all who responded.

Carolyn