compressing the instruction file pdf's ???

Post by **VelvetGeorge** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:44 pm

I have a question for the graphics minded people here. I have created 8.5 x 11" pdf files with pictures and text for each step of the JTM 45 instructions. Each is between 6 and 12 meg in size. Is there away to shrink the file size of these without losing too much resolution?

I'll post one for download as an example. If it's not too large.

George

Post by **VelvetGeorge** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:46 pm

Nope, too large. I saved it as a .jpg and got it to about 1M. But I'll have to see how the reolution has suffered.

George

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:03 pm

Do you have Photoshop/Imageready so you can optimize a PDF image for the web as a GIF? There's still a minimal loss of quality but on something of that size it should still be quite useable.
Edit -- I copied your file to my computer and I'll give it a try to see what size it turns out and what loss of quality might exist.

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:09 pm

Well, yer gonna need someone with more graphics know-how than me, I only managed to increase the file size!!
Gnugear, where the hell are ya buddy........

FMmark · Post by **FMmark** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:58 pm

George,
What was the source program you used to create the PDF's? Illustrator? Photoshop? If you're creating PDF's from scratch in those programs, essentially what you are doing is creating a hi-res PDF that a commercial printer would be able to use for a professional print job. There isn't really a good way to dither the DPI down using those programs as the source without a noticeable loss in quality, especially with the fonts.

I create reams of documentation all the time with extensive diagrams and graphics as I am a senior network architect at my firm. What I do is create my docs in Word then convert to a PDF using Adobe Acrobat. It makes the file size very reasonable and updating/editing and re-conversion to a new PDF is a breeze. I recently made a 30 page doc/PDF with graphics and pics on almost every page and the final PDF file size was about 2.5 megs. You just have to make sure the graphics you use, regardless of format, jpg, gif, png or whatever, are optimized before you insert them into the Word doc as it does help the final file size a bit. I find most digital pictures I use in documentation have excellent detail at 72 or 100 DPI and convert well from Word to PDF. I noticed the jpg you posted is 300 DPI which is quite large obviously.

Try converting your source graphics to 72, 100 or max 150 DPI, create the doc in Word then convert it to PDF, (assuming you have Acrobat - the complete version, not just the Reader) I think you'll find the file size is much more reasonable and your fonts will be much sharper. Make sure to use TT fonts as well, they convert to PDF nice and crisp.

You can also try using Acrobat's built in PDF Optimizer and fiddle with the bicubic downsampling settings on the files you've already made. It may help the graphics but the fonts will always get fuzzier unless the source is a Word or Wordperfect doc with TT fonts. I know there is a way to embed the fonts in the PDF if you used Photoshop or Illustrator and that might help too when you use Acrobat's PDF Optimizer. Unfortunately if you don't have Acrobat, it's a little expensive. (We wouldn't dream of pirating any software now would we, why that's against the law!)

Mark

MacGaden · Post by **MacGaden** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:16 am

FMmark is right: Optimize your source files, jpg´s etc. before you assemble your document in word or whatever you use. But, ideally you should have Acrobat and/or Indesign CS. Then you would´nt have to reduce filesizes. They do it all for you. You can export pdf´s for different purposes. If you don´t have it, get the full Acrobat to make the pdf´s. You need Acrobat to be able to have full control over compression and other settings to control the size of the files for whatever use.

We make .pdf´s for teaching materials at my University, with a lot of pictures of cells and other stuff the students need to be able to zoom in on. And the files does´nt need to get that big. PM me if you have questions. I work with Macs, graphics, sound, video and print for everything from movies to posters to magazines.

ricks57custom · Post by **ricks57custom** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:16 pm

George,
I can compress them to be quite a bit smaller. I may have to play with resolution to make it small but readable. If you want to sedn them to me I can do this for you.

Rick

Post by **VelvetGeorge** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:30 pm

I created them in Photoshop since that's what I have, and (barely) know how to use. I did doctor the images before inserting them into the layout. But maybe not enough. I was really concerned with people being able to zoom in.
I'll see if I can lower the resolution of the images some more.

I think if I can get each step down around 2-3 meg they will be fine.

I don't have Acrobat BTW. Just photoshop and iilistrator (which I have never opened).

George

FMmark · Post by **FMmark** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:42 pm

George,
I can combine your files and create the PDF for you. Either send them to me on a CD or post all the files zipped where I can download them and I'll be happy to take a shot at it with Acrobat.

If you want I can try to copy and paste your source text and graphics into Word and create the PDF from there which would really make it a reasonable file size with great resolution for people needing to zoom in.

Let me know, I'd be more than happy to help out.

Mark

Post by **VelvetGeorge** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:51 pm

Thanks Mark, can I zip and email you one of the steps to see how it works? I don't have a place to upload them right now. I'm looking for a new webmaster. Any one want the job?

It would be a .pdf file which I think you could edit the images individually.

George

FMmark · Post by **FMmark** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 4:09 pm

Yeah we can try that, email one to me - mark at funnymoneyband dot com. If for some reason it gets rejected because of file size, email it to me at my work address - marks at infostructures dot com.

I'll work on it tonight when I get home and email it back to you this evening.

Mark

Ricky Lee · Post by **Ricky Lee** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:06 pm

I do alot of documentation that involves high resulution JPG's generally taken from a digital camera. Typically I use tables which help for graphics/image placement in Microsoft Word documents. Once the image is copied into the Word document, you can double click the image itself, which will bring up the image properties screen which will have an image size tab located at the top of the screen itself. Click on the size tab and you will see the image size in percetanges % for both vertical and horizontal dimensions, changing one percentage changes the overall image size. Generally between 30% & 40% of the images original size works fine for me and is what appears to be the sizes of most of the images in Metros instruction manual. Afterwords, I just right click the Word document and click convert to PDF. The final product with an average 50 page report loaded with hi resulution images adjusted to about 40% of original sizes, and converted to PDF yields about a 2.8 meg file. But remember the original image needs to be of good resulution before you even start the process. It's like garbage in garbage out!

Post by **VelvetGeorge** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 11:26 am

Thanks for all of the suggestons. I admit to flying blind most of the time with this type of stuff. I don't have the full Acrobat, just the reader. So I've had to improvise a bit.

Here's what I have done, please let me know if you see any problems. I got the files to the sizes I wanted. But just like audio, I'm sure there are several ways to get to the samplerate you want. But only one way preserves the most resolution.

Create the file in photoshop - save as pdf - resize the image to 200 - use the "save for web" function - open the resulting jpg - save as pdf again.

George