GIMP Version: 2.6.11
Operating System: Mac OS
OS Version: 10.6.8
GIMP Experience: Intermediate Level

---

Hello,

I have recently upgraded to Gimp 2.8.3 on my Mac OS Snow Leopard, primarily for the new "export to PDF" feature that would keep text searchable within PDF.

The results are very odd... The text in the exported PDF is, indeed, searchable and copyable, but the font size shrinks drastically (see attached screenshot).

Any ideas on what could be causing this issue and how to solve it? Thank you very much for your help!

On the top of most pdf files there is a drop down at the top where you can view it at different percentages. Have you tried changing that?

It's probably the print resolution setting in Gimp. Go to, Image, Print Size settings and make sure it's 300 +.

Setting print size or creating new file at 300 ppi in GIMP does shrink true type fonts when converting to pdf. Leaving it at 72 dpi doesn't shrink the text but the resolution is low. GIMP isn't the best tool for this. I would recommend Scribus as intermediate backend software for converting to pdf.

Your right there are better solutions but I'm not sure about the shrinking text part If your going to make a PDF in Gimp you should use 300 ppi and points not pixels for text.

Thanks everyone for trying to help, but the issue persists. To clarify, the screenshot I've attached before is just a simple demonstration of the problem... But the actual Gimp document in question contains both images AND text. Images export fine, and text shrinks drastically. "Print to PDF" does the exporting to PDF but loses "copyability" of text (converts it to shape, I suppose). My goal is to preserve the "searchability"/"copyability" of text upon export to PDF.

The print resolution is already at 300 dpi, so that's not it. And I've tried converting pixels to points - no improvement in resulting PDF.

And I've installed Scribus, but now I'm in the dark as far as how to get my image/text document FROM Gimp TO Scribus for exporting to PDF.

Any other suggestions??? Thank you so much for your help!

In Scribus - Insert>Insert Image Frame, File>Import>Get Image
Insert>Insert Text Frame, File>Import>Get Text

You have your xcf file with images and text layers saved, I hope? Save layers as separate files.

Thank you for chiming in, again.

So, essentially, you are saying that I have to re-create the entire Gimp document, image by image, text box by text box, in Scribus? Or is there a way to save Gimp layers as "layers" which upon import into Scribus keep their relative position, size, etc.?

Try openoffice.org. For text editing it's amazing. If you wanna add images, it's as easy as copy paste from gimp to it and the pdf export has never given me any issues. Though I'm on a pc, there is a version of openoffice.org for mac.

For perceptive keep in mind, a letter size document is 8.5x11 inches that's 2550x3300 pixels. If the PDF is on screen only you don't really need to use 300ppi (pixel per inch). Also while Gimp can handle PDFs, if your making a multi-page document for layout the mentioned Scribus, InDesign or a good Word Processor are the better choice, for final PDF file size alone.

Thanks to everyone for the input!

Odinbc - I want to thank you especially, most gratefully, for introducing me to Scribus. Just finished re-creating the document in it, and found it much superior to Gimp for PDFs with text and images! You have saved my day!

Thanks Scribus is a great program, but a thumbs up should also go to K1TesseraEna for mentioning Scribus first in this thread

What helps is to delete the text information. Right click on the textfield and delete text information or similar (german version: Textinformationen verwerfen).
lg
bny

just export it to a jpeg then save the jpeg as a pdf.

I have the same problem today as well. See below.


The only way to to make it as the same file is what momobear said. Save jpg to PDF by using Gimp or any image software that support export pdf or an online PDF converter.