[asxless]

Although PDFs and the Preview application are integral parts of the OS X print system, Preview rarely** prints the PDFs created by the OS X print system at the correct scale. For example, printing a document while 'previewing' it in Preview, almost** always produces a smaller scale printout than when printed with the original application

You can demonstrate this with "Preview eXtreme":
Print any document with any OS X application but select "Preview" in the Print dialog. When Preview launches and shows you the 'preview' of your printed output, begin recursively Print>Previewing the document until it shrinks to the size of a postage stamp

This is because Preview scales printed output to fit completely within the 'formatting' printer's margins. Unfortunately, in the case of documents being 'Print>Previewed', this 'printed output' already includes the margins -

-- asxless in iLand

** FWIW Preview will print PDFs to the correct scale IFF you specify a printer/page size with zero margins in Preview's Page Setup dialog. And Acrobat Reader allows you to turn off this 'feature' via a setting in the Print dialog.

[asxless]

Preview eXtreme Part 2...

Preview frequently** prints multipage PDFs in the wrong page order.

To demonstrate this:
* Open any multipage PDF with Preview (or print a multipage document and "preview" it),
* Select your own printer in Page Setup and
* Print the PDF (you can just 'preview' it to save ink/paper).

Preview prints pages 2 through the last page, followed by the first page. This means that in order to print page 4-5 you need specify page 3-4, etc. Unless, of course, you let Preview use the default "Any Printer" in Page Setup which would print them in the correct order. Every OS X user needs a little challenge to keep life interesting

BTW you can 'fix' the scaling issue mentioned in my first post by hacking the margins of "Any Printer" to be 0. TheBum posted these Instructions for hacking the margins of "Any Printer" here on MacNN last fall

The file that controls those margins in 10.2.1 is /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/PrintCore.framework/Versions/A/Resources/PaperInfo.xml

Open the file in the editor of your choice. Change the real values under the "com.apple.print.PaperInfo.PMUnadjustedPageRec t" key for the appropriate paper size to the maximum printable area in points (1/72"); the ordering of those reals is top, left, bottom, and right (same as in the Page Setup Summary), and the top and left values should be 0. Then, change the real values under the "com.apple.print.PaperInfo.PMUnadjustedPaperRe ct" key: the top and left values should be a negative number of points equal to the top and left margins and the bottom and right values should be the total point size of the paper minus the margins.

So for Letter size paper with 0 margins both sets of reals become...
<real>0.000000000000000e+00</real>
<real>0.000000000000000e+00</real>
<real>7.920000000000000e+02</real>
<real>6.120000000000000e+02</real>

After I adjusted my "letter" margins to 0, I am able to recursively Print>Preview multi-page documents formatted for Letter size paper on 'Any Printer' in the correct page order and without them shrinking

Of course, modifying a fundamental print 'thingy' could lead to unforeseen consequences. So be careful out there...

-- asxless in iLand

** Preview will print multi-page PDFs in the right page order IFF "Any Printer" is selected in Preview's Page Setup dialog.