Scaling PDFs that aren't correct XY

[Chris_W]

Question for you all...

 

I have a PDF from a hotel and it doesn't seem to be correct when you scale between X and Y axis. If I had to guess, someone squeezed the image to fit it on a page. Is there an easy way to fix this if you are confident things are relatively correct?

 

[Boh]

To scale a pdf on one axis only is tricky as you cant use the scale objects command asymmetrically on pdfs. You can however stretch pdf's in one direction so my workaround is to graphically work out how much I need to stretch the pdf to get the correct dimension.

• Scale the whole pdf as you did initially.
• Check if the current (incorrect) dimension is longer or shorter than the required new (correct) dimension. If it is shorter then stretch the pdf page so that the current dimension is longer than the new dimension.
• Draw a line at the current dimension (trace on the pdf).
• Drag this line off the pdf and draw another line right next to it at the new length.

This new line needs to be shorter than the current line. If not delete the lines and repeat steps 2, 3 & 4.
 

• With two ends of the current and new lines aligning group the two lines.
• Move the aligned ends of the line group to align with the side of the pdf page.
• Stretch the group to match the pdf page. This stretches the new line proportionately to the current length line.
• Stretch the pdf page to align with the shorter line.
• Delete the line group.
• Your pdf should now be scaled correctly in both axis

[Chris_W]

Thanks, Boh. 

 

This is a great solution. You and I ended up doing the same thing, just in different ways. I tried to calculate the difference in scale and apply it asymmetrically. It worked OK, yours would probably do much better. 

 

I quickly got the point of telling the customer that we should have accurate drawings. I thought the drawing had only gotten squished...turns out it was way off in other ways too... If the idea is to make decisions, then we have to know we are working with accurate information...

 

Thanks again for the help