Printing a PDF that needs 2400% zoom

Hi all - First an explanation, then my question - I have made a family tree in x365 that, when editing and when exported to PDF, requires a lot of zoom, in order to read the very small text. I needed to make the text small, in order to fit all the names on the tree ("chart"). I wanted to keep each generation on a single, horizontal line, rather than to zig-zag the connecting "descendants". Because of that, I needed to make the text very small (0.36pt for some details - such as birth dates, etc.).

When I export this chart, the PDF requires a zoom of 2400% in order to read the smallest text on my 21-inch monitor (appearing as a normal 12pt text would appear on any display, in other words). My question is: How large would a paper print be, if this 2400% zoom was to be printed and to have the smallest text be comfortably read (as a newspaper print is, for example)? I made the chart onto a blank Xara document that was 8.5x11 inches (landscape format), then exported it to PDF. Would the print be, for example, 24 times the 11-inch-wide original (almost 22 feet wide?) Or would it be around 4.5 feet wide, perhaps?

The first guess is simply 24 (the 2400%) times the width (11 in.) = 264 in/12in. = 22 ft.

The second guess is counting each doubling of size (100% to 200% as and increase of 1; 200% to 400% as 2; 400% to 800% as 3; 800% to 1600% as 4 and 1600% to 3200% as 5 (although 3200% is larger than my target 2400%, it makes sure the text would be "readable"). Anyhow, using the "5" and multiplying it by the 11 inches would be: 11 in. x 5 = 55 in/12= 4.5 feet wide.

Sorry if this is confusing, but I have no idea how to know the required print size, zoomed to 2400%.

Mike W might have a suggestion.

I have moved this thread from Graphics (for non Xara products) to the Xara Graphics Chat forum.

I have no idea how to go about this. One of the PDF readers may allow such a scale to test a single page print until it achieves a readable size. Acrobat/Reader will only go to 1000%.

But I wouldn't ever design something like this in this way. I would decide what the acceptable text size is and create as many pages as it took to accomplish it. Well, no, I wouldn't. I would use a genealogy application (like my wife does). Sure saves a lot of manual grunt work. But if I felt I needed to do this, I would do it as I described.

Mike

I'd say the first guess is correct, 22 feet.

See xar file using a US Letter and a scaling factor of 1" to 24".

I used to work in a large format newspaper (broadsheet) and the smallest we were allowed to go was 3pt and that was on A1 page size which formed a double page spread. I would work from that, as I can't read anything from print when it's under 5pt. How are you going to print it as that's a lot of page tiling if your doing it yourself. Even with large format printers the biggest one that I have seen was 8 feet across the bed being fed by a roll. If you want the family tree to be read by your family I would scale your page size by at least 12.

Thanks for all the replies. I never intended this document to be printed. It was always intended for computer-viewing. I use PDF-XChange Viewer, which can zoom to 6400%, so this is easily within that capability. But, so many relatives asked about printing, and finally one said a friend has a plotter, and offered to make "prints", if possible. So I asked here for an answer about the size of a print that could render .39px text large enough to be "comfortably" read - like newspaper text-size. I made this "as" a PDF, so there is a tremendous amount of information on a single document. A PDF with everyone in the family on a single PDF. Yes, there is also a genealogy/Ancestry document, but this single document actually has three trees on it - blood lines from both sides - like 14 generations in total. I knew it was almost certainly "no possible" to make a print - and told my relatives so. But, I wanted to know just hoe large the print would be. If a plotter could do it, I'd let him try it. It would be a "wall piece", for sure. But, it seems my thoughts were right: "probably 22 feet wide". Thanks, all of you!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jagga

print that could render .39px text

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That should have been: .39pt text/font size, not ".39px" - sorry.

Not at my computer to try it out but would a poster size documents instead of a standard size to start with make a difference?

to an extent legibility depends on the font - our system logs come out in fixedsys font at 6pt [gets a lot on the page], I sure would not want to try to read anything smaller in that font or at all probably.. which would make your width a tad over 14.1 feet

Thanks, Egg - your sample was very close in size to mine. No printing for some of my charts, there are others with less information that can be printed, however. I'm new to forums, so please excuse any clumsiness. Attachment 118450