I'm trying to kitbash the caveworks stuff I just bought and am having a heck of a time doing it. Can you please let me know what I'm missing here?

Adobe Reader 8.1.3
Gimp 2.6.3

1) In Adobe Reader, I open Risers.pdf.
2) In Edit -> Preferences, I choose Page Display, and under Resolution I select Custom Resolution and specify 250 pixels/inch.
3) In Tools, Select & Zoom, I choose the select tool.
4) I click and drag so that I've selected the image on page 1.
5) I select Edit -> copy.

So I think I have the image on my clipboard with 250 pixels/inch. I seem to be wrong.

6) In Gimp I select File -> New.
7) Under Image Size I make sure the image will be in inches, and I choose a width of 8.5 and a Height of 11.5.
8) Under advanced options I choose pixels/in as my units and then set both the X resolution and the Y resolution to be 250.000.
9) The new image opens up, and I click Edit -> Paste.
10) I then select the measure tool, and measure one of the squares, starting from the middle of one of the border lines and ending in the middle of another border line.
11)The measure I get is .78 inches at 90 degrees.


If I do everything the same but in step 2 I choose "Use System Setting" which is 96 pixels/inch, and in step 8 I set both X resolution and Y resolution to 96, when I paste the image in step 9 the image can't fit on the 8.5x11 inch canvas I've created for it, and each square is 2.15 inches across.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

If I'm in Adobe Reader and I set it to 100% zoom and then use the snapshot tool, I can get something that I can paste into Gimp where an inch on the PDF is an inch in Gimp. The only problem is that the snapshot only grabs the part of the image I can see which isn't the whole thing so I'll have to paste it in in pieces and then assemble them.

I'll stick with that until someone has a better idea.

SCORE!!! I figured it out.

In my general preferences for Adobe Reader I enabled "Use fixed resolution for Snapshot tool images" and set the pixels/inch to be 250.

Then I can set the zoom to something that captures the whole image and it works just the way I wanted it to when I have my Gimp set to 250 pixels/inch as well (I'm not going to fiddle with that at all to see if it matters... It works and that's all I care about).

Thanks for posting the follow-up fix, I shall have to try this trick myself now.

These are my steps to kitbash on Windows.

1. Select the image in Acrobat by clicking on it. Right click and say copy image. This gets the entire original image as far as I can tell.
2. Paste into a new image in paint.net. Edit to my heart's content. Save as a PNG.
3. Open word as insert the image into a file. Turn on snap to grid. Resize the page borders and the image to get to the original size.
4. Print the word document.

I use a ruler to measure a printout of the original pdf and scale the Word display to give "real" coordinates on screen -- then I measure the elements on the screen with a ruler to make sure they match correctly. The document I created once seems to be working on multiple images.

Maybe using a screen measuring tool like would help. Just make sure you figure out all of the nuances when using. I have tried a few of those kind of programs and each one seems to have a mind of its own in regards to the display.