The view is much improved

While putting together the CQ newsletter - and trying to get most articles onto a two-page spread - I've been frustrated by seeing the PDFs that I send out to the authors as a sequence of single pages on my screen.

And I've been wondering, off and on, if they see them that way too ... but somehow I've never done anything about it, like finding out how to change the view ...

My digital-generation son has taught me that in order to find out how to do something "techy", use a search engine: "Just type in the question as if you're talking, Mum."

So I typed in "how do you get a pdf to display as two pages"  ... and quick as a flash came the answer (ok, I did have to click to get to the page) -

"When you open a PDF for the first time, it may display one page at a time.

You can change the view so that two pages are displayed side-by-side (like a book is). These instructions explain how to change the view in Adobe Reader (a common program used to view PDFs that can be downloaded for free from Adobe).

From the View menu, choose Page Display. 

Then select “Two Page View” and “Show Cover Page in Two Page View.” "

So I did -

"From the View menu, choose Page Display; then select "Two Page View" (or "Two-Up")"

Which means the PDF looks rather like this -

Now, is there some way that two-page view can become the default option?

The first answer to the question "how do you get a pdf to default display as two pages" is a little bit complicated - or seems to be, thanks to the amount of information on the page, and the terse jargon ... I need a digital-generation interpreter!

Back to the Results page, and anothr click brings this useful information:

"Change the default page layout (initial view)

You specify the default initial view settings in the Preferences dialog box. (See Set preferences.)

1. In the Preferences dialog box under Categories, select Page Display.
2. Open the Page Layout menu and choose Automatic, Single Page, Single Page Continuous, Two-Up, or Two-Up Continuous.

Note: The PDF opens with the page layout specified in Preferences unless a different page layout is specified in Document Properties (File > Properties > Initial View). The Document Properties setting overrides the Preferences setting. If using Document Properties, be sure to save and close the document for the change to take effect. Acrobat users can change the initial view, unless security settings prevent changes. Reader users cannot change the initial view."

(Preferences is in the Edit menu.)

Setting the default to two page view

It's interesting that "Reader users cannot change the initial view." Now that my view is set to Two-Up, readers of the PDF sent to them will automatically be able to see it as two pages ... whereas when it was sent to them as a sequence of single pages, they wouldn't even be able to change it!