Big Nerd Ranch Weblog

Comment from Daniel Jalkut
Time: January 14, 2007, 9:55 pm

Nice turnaround! Big kudos on all the changes, especially the scripting support. I like your idea of extremely verbose descriptions in the AppleScript dictionary. Never thought of doing that before, but it makes perfect sense. Especially since AppleScript is such a learn-by-example language.

Comment from sambo
Time: January 14, 2007, 11:23 pm

Nice work. I liked the original version, and expected an update that was essentially the same thing in A4 format, but this is fantastic.

Thanks!

Comment from djp72
Time: January 15, 2007, 6:44 pm

AWESOME!! i just saw amber macarthur on command N give you guys a shout out. Brilliant little app. real nice!
my only drama is i keep getting ! exclamation ! marks ! inbetween ! each ! word ! whn i print it out…?

Comment from Administrator
Time: January 15, 2007, 7:55 pm

There is an odd bug: In the pages from DIY Planner, the space character is replaced with an exclamation mark in the printout. I’ve asked Apple Developer Technical Support to take a look at the problem.

Just ignore the exclamation marks for now. I think they only appear in the DIY pages.

Comment from Douglas Johnston
Time: January 16, 2007, 1:15 am

I’m the designer of the D*I*Y Planner forms in question, and I’m as baffled as anyone by the exclamation marks. I’ve printed these forms thousands of times “natively” via Acrobat (and so have thousands of our site members) and have never seen an errant mark.

However, this is doubly confusing because the cover page (using the same font) does not exhibit that problem. Does anyone have any ideas?

all my best,
dj

Comment from DanM
Time: January 17, 2007, 10:29 pm

I learned about your app from CommandN. I’ve used PocketMod a few times, but your app makes it a lot more convenient.

Thanks
DanM

Comment from DanM
Time: January 17, 2007, 11:02 pm

I have the exclamation point problem as well. In ASCII a space is 0×20 while an exclamation point is 0×21. I don’t know anything about PDF but some font indexing looks to be off by one.

Comment from Axel Rauschmayer
Time: January 18, 2007, 12:35 pm

Thanks for this program. You should create a dedicated web page for it (that refers to the folding tutorial and DIY Planner like your first blog entry on PagePacker)!

Comment from Mike Warren
Time: January 18, 2007, 2:08 pm

Nicely done and practical application. As an often frustrated AppleScripter and a Hillegass fan since buying his cocoa book many years ago, I had to see what your AppleScript dictionary looked like. I wasn’t disappointed. You included comments and examples showing how to use the script features — practically *unheard-of* — thanks!

Comment from Eike
Time: January 19, 2007, 2:37 am

A big thanks for the A4 version, it’s great!

Comment from Corby Kissler
Time: January 20, 2007, 8:29 am

Hey Aaron – Nice application – very slick – There is a whole lot of features I like about this – just found found one little bug – maybe it is, not sure, but pages 5 and 6 print out a little smaller than the rest. Is this by design?

Comment from Administrator
Time: January 20, 2007, 11:34 am

Regarding the exclamation points: Apple is telling me that this is probably a bug in Mac Os X 10.4, and it has been fixed in 10.5.

Regarding the fact that pages 5 and 6 are smaller than the rest: This is by design. Your printer is telling PagePacker that it can’t draw near the bottom of the page. So pages 5 and 6 are shrunk so that they don’t get cut off.

My printer (an HP 1320) actually lies about its imageable rectangle — it can draw much closer to the edge of the page than it claims. Thus, pages 5 and 6 are smaller than they really have to be.

Regarding any thing nice in the AppleScript dictionary: That was the brilliance of Matt Neuburg.

Comment from J Stricklin
Time: January 23, 2007, 5:58 pm

I love the idea and have used pocketmods for a while now, so I love the app. Only one problem, none of my apps print to A5. In fact even if I put it in manually in the programs that will allow that it tells me that the paper size is to small. I really love the idea of making my own pocketmods based on the info that I need with me throughout the day but it is useless until I can get it to work. I realize that I may be doing something completely wrong or am missing the obvious fix.

Comment from damon
Time: January 26, 2007, 2:17 pm

re: Pages 5 and six

I’ve got an HP 5100, and all I have to do to get 5 & 6 to print full size is set the printer and paper size under Page Setup before printing.

d

Comment from Nicolas
Time: January 31, 2007, 3:22 pm

cool little app! Compliments!
BTW: it is easy to print on A3 for larger items! Just go into page setup and choose A3 and change scaling to 141% (which is double A4) and that is it! Well, you need an A3 printer!

cheers Nicolas

Comment from Nicolas
Time: January 31, 2007, 3:39 pm

sorry guys… My bad… does not work with the 141% enlargement
Maybe a next version will have this option….

Comment from Phill
Time: February 1, 2007, 8:57 am

This is genius! Really baffled by why I get exclamation points ! where there should be spaces though.

A3 printing would be fan-bloody-tastic!

Comment from Lee
Time: February 4, 2007, 2:22 pm

I was looking through the help file to figure out how to use this, and it instructs to print iCal calendars to A5 paper… and though I can see in the screenshot that it’s possible, I don’t have “A5″ as an option in my print dialog. How do I enable printing to A5 paper?

Comment from Brett
Time: February 7, 2007, 2:47 am

Great application – I really like this. But I would like to be able to type into some of the templates on-the-fly (from within PagePacker) as well – particularly the ToDo list! Is this sort of thing a possibility in a future version?

Comment from Bob
Time: February 12, 2007, 11:37 pm

I am a high school physics teacher and I am planning to post an 8 page summary of each chapter’s notes (equations etc.) as a “ready to cut-and-fold” pdf on my class website. I’ll take the pages from my Keynote presentations and edit them down to the 8 most important pages. I think my students will like having all of the information in a little “book” that they can then use as a bookmark in their real textbook.

This is an awesome program / idea. All the more so for its simplicity!

Thanks!

Comment from Tibor
Time: February 23, 2007, 2:48 pm

This is great, i love it. Thanks!

One question: No matter what template I choose (Weekly, To Do list, etc.), they never use the full space of the little pages when printed out. As I’m from Germany, I use the A4 setting and paper.

Any workarounds?

Best,
Tibor

Comment from Nelson
Time: February 26, 2007, 4:00 am

Would love to see an option to make it a 4 page booklet instead of 8.. Pages print out a little too small for my needs as an 8 page book.. Would a 4 page (ie 2x the page size) be on the cards?

Otherwise an excellent app – great work.

Comment from Jim Harrison
Time: March 31, 2007, 6:41 am

As to uses of PagePacker, this is obvious, but….
Page 1: A notes page from the templates, or a 1 page PDF from a word processor or drawing program with personalization and space for notes.
Pages 2-7: 6 work days of iCal, printed to PDF, one day per page
Page 8: Departmental phone directory, distributed to us as Excel, printed as a one-page PDF.
Print a new one every day or two, file the old ones, with notes, chronologically.
Now I just need an applescript to manage the PDF generation for the next 6 days in iCal.

Comment from flight16
Time: April 11, 2007, 2:08 pm

Absolutely amazing. Special thanks for the AppleScript support. For me, it changed PagePacker from something almost usable to (almost) perfect.

I’m working on scripts to
1. Save iCal calendars and tasks to a PDF and add it to PagePacker.
2. Take the most recent words I added to my word list (for studying a foreign language), save as a pdf, and add to PagePacker.
3. Add a daily/weekly Bible passage and other fun daily .rss things.

Future suggestions:
Thumbnails for PDFs, for easier browsing. A search box would be nice too.
Arbitrary paper sizes.
Would Leopard’s new grid control be a good match for Packer?

Comment from Wilm
Time: April 16, 2007, 7:35 am

like Tibor I seam to have a problem when using the A4 setting. Some of the pages in the booklet are scaled too much, aka they are smaller than some of the other resized pages in the booklet (can be easily spotten when using a grey page for all pages).

Comment from Michael Cohen
Time: June 14, 2007, 3:12 pm

For folks who like bigger print, a useful trick in iCal is to use the “screen” paper type. With the list version of the calendar this is considerably more readable than printing with the “big” font alone. A second trick is to set the iCal preferences for 5 work days in the week view. Printing this, again on “screen” paper, gives a more readable version than the 7 day view.

While I’m here, I’ll say, as have so many others, I think the app is quite nifty. It solves for me an important problem of being able to easily carry a copy of a current calendar view while managing my time from a task list – in my case “remember the milk”.

Comment from Administrator
Time: June 16, 2007, 8:12 am

If you download and install the app again, you will get a version that will not expire. I’m about to release the source of a new build that is localized for Japanese. Give me a couple of days.

Comment from Catherine Hicks
Time: July 23, 2007, 11:14 am

Is there a way to add your own customizable mods to it? I use pocketmods a lot but have created a lot of my own mods and download a few more.I love your interface and would love to be able to add them to it because it would make it a lot easier.

Any ideas or tips for that?

Comment from AKMA
Time: August 20, 2007, 8:33 pm

The premise is stunning, but all the templates result in type and lines that are too small for comfortable reading (for my older eyes). That’s OK, I’m building my own, but someone might want to consider designing less information-rich, more readable templates.

Comment from Jeannie
Time: October 3, 2007, 11:56 am

Great program. Is there a way to change margin settings? My computer puts a 1inch margin at the bottom of the page. That makes those two little pages get reduced in size. Other than that, no problems.

Comment from Deborah
Time: October 25, 2007, 7:11 pm

Did you ever release “the source of a new build that is localized for Japanese” that you mentioned on June 16. Where would I find that? I would like to see the source code.

Comment from Cheryl
Time: July 11, 2008, 12:50 am

Thanks SOOOOO much! Yes, the DIY pages are waaaay too tiny but I’ve made my own pages using Word and it’s working just great! I’d like to bake you some cookies.

Comment from Trish
Time: June 30, 2010, 7:38 am

Ok, just found this cool app and it seems to be just what I have been looking for! However, a basic question: How do I type in my to do lists on your great catalog of pages? Can’t do it before I move them, or after. Don’t want to use my crummy handwriting. Thanks