new user Looking For Tips...

[sumilsay]

hey peeps,

i have a bunch of word documents that i am converting to pdf's. in word, i have the add-in where i can click a button and it coverts the whole document.

my question is, are there any tips/techniques that i can do to make the converted pdf file to the smallest size possible?

thanks,
me.

 

[Eggles]

Check to see whether you are using Distiller or PDFWriter by having a look at what 'virtual' printers you have installed. If you have Distiller, you can preset the level of compression and thus file size by going to Start>Settings>Printers, highlighting Distiller and right clicking to bring up a menu that includes Properties. (You can also go to File>Properties).

Click on the tab with Adobe PDF settings. There will be a dropdown list with Screen, eBook, Print and Press. The 'Screen' setting has the highest compression, lowest quality and smallest file size. 'Press' has the least compression, highest quality and largest file size with the others in between.

Depending on what the intended purpose for the PDF is, will determine which setting you should use. For emailing and viewing ON SCREEN ONLY, the Screen setting is fine. All graphics are downsampled to 72dpi. If you intend printing the PDF on a desktop printer and want it to look halfway decent, then the eBook setting (150dpi graphics) is usually fine. For a high end office laser printer capable of 1200dpi, then the Print setting should be chosen. And finally if sending the PDF for commercial offset printing, use the Press setting.

The difference in file size can be quite astonishing. For example, I have a 12 page document in Pagemaker, lots of B&W photos, and the PDF made with the eBook setting is nearly 2MB. The same document converted to PDF with the Screen setting is 376KB.

If you are using the PDF Writer - you can do something similar by going into the Properties (as before on the printer list) and clicking on the Details tab, then on the Setup button, then on the Compression button. It's not quite as easy as with Distiller, but you can choose whether to embed fonts (another button) and the resolution of the PDF. The default appears to be 300dpi on my computer, but you can change that to 150 or 200 dpi for printing to a desktop printer and you probably won't be able to see much difference in quality (but you will in file size) or drop it down to 72-100dpi for emailing/onscreen viewing. Experiment to find the most suitable settings for your situation.