Quark 6 massive file size problem!!!!! 3

[dbriens]

I'm at the end of my rope here.

Upgraded to Quark 6.

Working on a multi page layout when for no reason Quark decided my file size would increase 250MB!!!!

The file started at a meager 2 Meg and was saved this way through multiple versions and then all of a sudden it jumped to 250meg and then again to 500meg. I didn't notice until i closed the file and now it's so big it takes for ever to open.

Now, I'm no novice at Quark and their is no reason for my file to be this size.
I've even tried deleting all changes i made and re-saving just to see it that reverted my file size, but no luck- still massive!!!!

what the ^%&#@

HELP.

 

[zjbm1]

I've just joined this forum, looking for an answer to this exact problem... did you ever find a solution? If so, could you share it with me?

This is proving to be a real problem at the moment as we are eating through the space on our server with these huge quark files that are hundreds of MBs, rather than less than 10 as they were before.

Help would be much appreciated!

 

[BodesMan]

Is sounds like your placing large hi-res images into the file but you did not mention anything about that - -so I have no idea to whats going on with what your facing.

I'm alos curious if anyone knows the answer to your problem

info@prepress-online.com

http://www.prepress-online.com

"Tell'em we're comin', and hell's comin' with us.

 

[zjbm1]

We're not doing anything different to what we've done with previous versions of quark. Pictures are placed by using the 'get picture' command and although these do link to high res images, this is exactly what we've done in the past.

However, now, rather than the finished document being 3MB or so in size - it can be 300MB in size!

 

[blueark]

Check your preferences (Edit > Preferences > Preferences) and have a look at the section called Application > Display. Look at Color TIFFs and see if it's set to 32-bit.

Older versions of Quark defaulted to lower values, resulting in grainier (but smaller) image previews. I normally have this at 8-bit, as I don't really rely on Quark for accurate image previews, but even 16-bit will make a difference. Note that if you do change this value, it doesn't affect existing images in your document, so you may have to re-import them to see any difference.

 

[duncdude]

If you are importing TIFF's then try importing EPS files instead - I found this makes for MUCH smaller documents


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[zjbm1]

I tried what you suggested blueark - reducing the display prefs to 16-bit and even 8-bit but it made no difference whatsoever - I still had a 202MB quark file...

I had the idea to change all the tifs to eps files before I saw your post duncdude, but I'm happy to say that has done the trick! The file is now 8.2MB - much more as it used to be.

In the past we had always used eps files, almost exclusively, but when we changed to OSX and Quark 6, we found that we had problems printing eps files on our black and white laser printer - in fact, we couldn't print in binary at all, only in ASCII or our printer would throw out hundreds of pages with gobbledegook on them! So we changed to tiffs as that didn't present the problem but didn't realise that the file sizes would increase so much!

We now have a new colour printer (when our systems people get around to installing it) and so hopefully we can go back to using eps files and stop these monster files from using up all our server space!

Thanks to everyone for thinking this through!

 

[blueark]

Just to explain what's happening behind the scenes, image previews are stored in the Quark document, increasing its size. EPS files often contain their own preview, which is what Quark uses instead of generating its own, resulting in smaller files that import much quicker.

With other files, such as TIFFs, Quark creates its own preview, which again is stored in the document. If they are of a high quality, they take up more room. Changing the display prefs setting will solve this, but as I mentioned, you have to reimport the images too, otherwise it will make no difference.

 

[zjbm1]

Apologies blueark, I forgot to actually reimport the images rather than just update them. When I did that, the file reduced from 202MB to 71MB with the setting at 16-bit and 51MB with the setting at 8-bit.

Still seems that going back to eps will be the best option if we are going to get the most out of our server and reduce the number of DVDs/CDs we use to send jobs to press and for archiving.

Thanks for the technical explanation - I can now tell my team what's going on and why!

 

[Lessa]

Will the eps replacing tiffs work in version 4 as well? I'm about to do some books with millions of photos and I remember the last time I did the books, the files took a long time to open. Though the file size was only 4 mb.

 

[blueark]

EPS files will always make the Quark file faster and smaller, even in version 4. However, the EPS files themselves are usually significantly bigger, unless you're using compression. Which is the more important is up to you.

 

[HamJamin]

Which do you feel is the all round best? TIFF or EPS?
I’m trying to modify a catalog that was done with very oversized jpg pictures and the file is huge. I can’t tell you how slow my computer is working on it.
My plan it to re-size all the pictures first. But I’m not certain if it’s best to save them as a TIFF or EPS.
And like every job ‘time is of the essence’

 

[blueark]

I don't know if there's a right answer to this. I generally use TIFFs because when I started out, many years ago, the fact that they took up less space on my hard disk than EPS files was a significant factor. By now, it has just become a habit, as disk space is not the issue it used to be.

Both are fine, especially if they're resized properly before bringing them into Quark. As you're doing a catalog, presumably with many pictures, I'd probably choose EPS, as updating your old pictures will be faster.

 

[zjbm1]

As blueark has said - the tiffs make for a larger Quark doc but the eps files themselves are bigger.

I'd go for eps files because of the way we work. The images are only stored once, so the larger eps files are not a problem but we could have four or five different versions of the Quark file as things are amended, updated with client corrections etc. Having several huge Quark files of 50-100MB each on the server will take up much more room than the eps files.