#  Other Applications & Softwares  > Word Formatting & General >  > [SOLVED] Resize a table to fit my pages

## jomili

I've attached my problem.  File was originally a poorly formatted PDF (incorrect margins I couldn't fix).  I went online and converted it to an RTF, then saved it to Word to reduce the file size.  The PDF was designed to print on 11X17 paper, but I'd rather print it on Legal or Letter, getting the best fit.  But I still can't get it to accept my margins.  When I try to change them it says the print won't fit, but I can't figure out how to resize the darn thing.  Any help on this would be appreciated.

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## Aardigspook

I've no idea what's causing it either.  I tried adjusting the margin sizes for every section individually, using the ruler as the dialogue box wouldn't let me in most cases, but that didn't help.
However, I've managed to copy the tables and text to a new document in Legal size for you.  There's a page break after each table instead of the continuous section breaks in your original.  You'll have to adjust the column widths a bit to get the tables to fit properly (and the row heights if you want them on one page each), but at least the paper size is better now.
Hope that helps.

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## jomili

I appreciate your work on it, but more than that I wanted to learn how to do it myself (I've noticed that about problems; they always come back).

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## macropod

Your page margins are set to a variety of sizes for the different Sections, and some of those margins are insufficient for most printers. If you select the entire document (e.g. Ctrl-A), then set the column count to 1, you can then use 0.25in margins - which are sufficient for most printers - throughout.

If you also set the preferred width for each table to 100%, they'll adjust to fit whatever margins (and paper sizes) you use.

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## jomili

When I try to set it to one column I get the popup saying"Settings you chose for the left and right margins, column spacing, or paragraph indents are too large for the page width in some sections".  

However, AFTER taking your suggestion on "Table width 100%" I was able to reset the margins.  The problem then is that the tables don't fit on the pages correctly.  

What I'd really like to do is resize the table like you would resize a picture; grab a corner and take in to the desired size within my margins.  Any ideas?

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## macropod

> However, AFTER taking your suggestion on "Table width 100%" I was able to reset the margins.  The problem then is that the tables don't fit on the pages correctly.  
> 
> What I'd really like to do is resize the table like you would resize a picture; grab a corner and take in to the desired size within my margins.  Any ideas?



You haven't said what the correct size vis-à-vis your margins would be. You could, of course, set the table width to, say, 80% and then even tell Word to center the tables on the page.

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## jomili

it's not just table width, it's table height, text size, etc.  It's made to fit on an 11x17 sheet, and I can't get it to resize down to fit on standard paper sizes.  Resetting the table width doesn't do it

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## macropod

Obviously, if you're going to change the page size and aspect ratio, you'll have a fair bit of work to do to re-scale everything. Since the tables were originally in PDF format, why don't you just print the PDF from Adobe Acrobat and tell that app to re-scale the printout to suit your paper size?

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## jomili

that's what I tried at first, and couldn't figure out how to accomplish that.

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## Aardigspook

Have a look here:  https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/s...ted-pages.html

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## jomili

Aardigspook, 
The link you pointed me to looks like it would work well, but my application (I'm at work) is different.  The pictures below show my issue.  When I open the PDF, it's in portrait mode, so I have to switch to Landscape.  When I do, it has huge margins, so my printed page is hard to read (too small).  when I choose "choose paper source by PDF page size" it looks good, but wants to print on 17X11 inch paper.  I want the view for the 17x11, but on 8.5x11, which would mean the margins should shrink proportionally, which they don't.

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## Aardigspook

If you have Legal paper does that maybe work better?  The proportions are more similar (17x11 = 1.55:1, legal 14x8.5 = 1.65:1, letter 11x8.5 = 1.29:1).

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## jomili

Out of all my options legal seems to be the best.  If I could shrink the margins 8.5*11 would be just right, can't figure out how to do that.

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## Syrkrasi

After analyzing your document, the best solution I found was inserting (copying & pasting) the tables into Excel.  Here I was able to fix field merging issues and margin errors.  see attachment for a few examples

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## macropod

You could, of course, use the 8.5*11 paper in landscape mode as per the 2nd image in post #11 but with a custom scale...

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