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PDF Conversion

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6 replies

by ranchito

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Compression of the resulting PDF-file appears to be VASTLY different depending on the conversion facility used. Often the size ratio between original file and PDF-file varies enormously and the Variation does not seem to follow any discernible logic.
01) Why?
02) Which program produces the smallest PDF-file?
03) What is the risk of quality (resolution) loss in the case of bitmpas?

6 replies

by shhite

I don't have an answer as to why it changes so drastically but my company uses Bluebeam PDF Revu and it does convert very well w/o loss of resolution. It does consistently keep the pdf's small as well. It has almost all the same capabilities as Adobe Acrobat for a third of the cost.

You can download a fully functional 30 day trial from the following link.

http://www.bluebeam.com/web07/us/downloads/

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Shanon

by jdclyde

There are the quick and simple prints to a file, that make a relatively small file, and then there is the ability to do all the linking and extra publishing options.

A program like adobe distiller will make a file 10 times larger than adobe pdf writer will.

Also, saving to a pdf instead of printing to a pdf can make a difference.

If you use the built in features of an office product, it will often add in a lot of unnecessary code, just like frontpage does for html.

For a quick, small, and free pdf, I use cutePDF.

by rob miners

why some products have a lot of overheads as JD has pointed out. I use a free product called PrimoPDF that will shrink it down to a reasonable size and it doesn't lose any of the quality.

http://www.primopdf.com/

by ranchito

Thank You!
I've been using Primo myself for some time, but then discovered that it really generates quite inflated PDFs - and is rather slow, to boot.
E.G.: a word document of 23.8MB resulted in a PDF of 20.1MB. Whereas the (not free of charge) "Click-to-Print" produced one of 14.1MB...
Both took a LONG time and both produced a PDF of good quality.
The seven other programs I tried, produced PDFs of good quality too, but the sizes ranged from 19.8MB to 43MB (!)
VAST differences with no apparent explanation...
Thanks and Regards,
HP Bodmer, Northern Ireland

by rob miners

difference in the sizes. Are all of the images that you are using .jpg. I recently received a pdf from on of my friends who is a Cake Decorator. It contains 32 images with pricing and information on each individual Cake. The file is 726kb on one page and it was created in word. From what I can gather the images are around 200 X 200 or probably smaller. It looks great. If you can keep the image size down you would do better.

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