Why Mac OS X "Save a pdf" feature always print a pdf with smaller text?

[satanicsurferz]

Hi,

I often use the "Save as pdf" option on Mac OS X to print my documents into a PDF file instead of on a printer. It works quite well, however, I noticed that the text is always smaller on the resulting PDF!

For example, if I print something directly to the printer Vs if I save as pdf and then print the pdf to the printer, the latter is always gonna have smaller text.

Until today, it didn't matter much... however now I'm making my resume as a Word document, then saving it to PDF to send to future employers. If they do print it, the text is smaller, so harder to read.

Has anybody else noticed this? Can something be done?
Are there any other ways to print to pdf that shouldn't have this issue?

I installed this one:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfwriterformac/

And I don't even know how to print with it.

Thanks for your help!

Edit: I have Snow Leopard

[IanWilson]

Originally Posted by satanicsurferz

Hi,

I often use the "Save as pdf" option on Mac OS X to print my documents into a PDF file instead of on a printer. It works quite well, however, I noticed that the text is always smaller on the resulting PDF!

For example, if I print something directly to the printer Vs if I save as pdf and then print the pdf to the printer, the latter is always gonna have smaller text.

Until today, it didn't matter much... however now I'm making my resume as a Word document, then saving it to PDF to send to future employers. If they do print it, the text is smaller, so harder to read.

Are you sure that the text is actually smaller in the PDF? Or is it that when you print the PDF there is an option to scale the print? If it thinks that your document margins goes outside the boundaries of what the printer can reproduce it may scale it to less than 100%. The dialog box may vary according to whether you are viewing the PDF using Preview, Adobe Reader or something else, but but usually when you print a PDF you can set the scale to 100%, or "actual size" or something like that (as opposed to "fit to page", say). But the same is not true in the dialog box you get when you print a Word document, so you always get it full size.

Ian