Thread: Can I compress a PDF file

PDF's are already pretty well compressed. From memory, RAR'ing them will only give you about 1-3% compression, & ZIP only the merest smidgin more, so for a 20MB PDF I'd expect only 1/2 a meg saving.

Sorry.

bum, means theres a couple of ebooks I'll have to burn to cd.
Though I spose they're less likely to be pirated and flogged off by the
"earn 4 grand a week for 2 hours work" lot.

or maybe setup a download page, I dunno how to do that securely.

You could go the route of using a compressor to create smaller multi-part archives and attach each part to a seperate e-mail. I used to do this to fit largish files onto several 1.44MB floppies.

A bit like MDF really.

Actually, if you have the right software, you can alter the settings on the PDF files during creation to reduce their size.

The options revolve upon the destination of the file: Will it be printed, and at what quality, or will it be viewed on screen. I'm sure you can alter this in the full-blown acrobat application (not the reader), and I hear tell you can alter it in MacOSX as well. Haven't heard of a converter that delves into the PDF and fixes it for a lower res, but it is possible, might be worth a google search...

woodbe.

Errmmm... yes, you can change the compression settings in Adobe Distiller (part of Acrobat) but I'm fairly sure Distiller only gives the choice of CCITT4, ZIP or JPeg compression modes. Unless there's a lot of graphics, most of the remaining options are useless as they're mainly related to resampling pix. Not embedding fonts is possible, saving a tiny bit of space, but only if a couple of common fonts are used or you know the target system has them installed.

The figures I quoted for ZIP & RAR were using the "best" compression settings for those algorithms and for a primarily text document in PDF that's as good as the compression'll get. (JPeg format for text? Don't even try. )

Again, probably not what anyone wanted to hear.

Bob,

You can set the security in Acrobat so that, in theory at least, people can't pirate your work. I don't know anything about compressing .pdf files though.

Rocker

Bob,

As noted above, files can be optimised, but the best bet is to optimise them before you convert them to PDF.

Most of the size will be in the images, so if the document is unlikely to go to print, or will be mostly viewed on screen, drop the image size and resolution down to the minimum possible.

My monthly reports at work are printed using high resolution images with a total file size of around 30mb, so I do a duplicate with the same images set up at a screen resolution (72 dpi) and I can usually get them down to 700k, in PDF form.

Cheers,

P

Go to Printers, Acrobat Distiller, Properties, Advanced, Printing Defaults, Advanced, Print Quality & change it from 1200dpi back to 144dpi.
You can go back to 72dpi as well but that is only if you never want to print a hard copy.

I set the images at 70 dpi before I posted this thread.
Even using low res images it looks like being a pdf file well over 20mb.
Splitting it into a number of smaller files probably won't help as many mailboxes will overflow with 20mb.

I really don't like the idea of me burning cds as I go off on a tangent easily. (In other words I can be very slack)
Automated email delivery is my first choice, but that seems impractical with very large ebooks.
Auto directing clients to a download page seems the only practical solution at this stage. I suppose I could password protect the download page.

Originally Posted by Cliff Rogers

Go to Printers, Acrobat Distiller, Properties, Advanced, Printing Defaults, Advanced, Print Quality & change it from 1200dpi back to 144dpi.
You can go back to 72dpi as well but that is only if you never want to print a hard copy.

I'm not using acrobat to make the pdf's.

However I got into the pdf settings and reset them.
On a test file in standard settings it was 1.33mb
On the new settings it is 865 kb.
So its a significant reduction.
So a file of 20mb could be reduced to about 12mb which is still much too big to fit in many email boxes.

Originally Posted by echnidna

Auto directing clients to a download page seems the only practical solution at this stage. I suppose I could password protect the download page.

You could also manually forward through http://www.yousendit.com/

This site (and there are others) allow a relatively secure upload. A message is sent to the email address of the recipient, and they have 72hours to download via the web.

It's free, and get's around the password issues with having your own download page. (People can't return and download again)

Cheers,

P

Originally Posted by echnidna

I've got a couple of 20mb pdf's,
can I compress them so they can be emailed?

Bob,

PDFs will compress but its not worth the effort...the file size drops by a few K at most.

I deal with alot of large image files in my job out on the oil rigs....wireline logs are given to me in PDF format and I then have to email them to the client over a substandard comms link.

I may be wrong on this one but I recall PS files being alot smaller than PDF's. On one occasion I think I sent PS files (smaller than PDF) and the client then converted them to PDF files at the other end.

Cheers Martin