Reducing PDF file size

SK
Posted By
Steve_Kugler
May 15, 2007
Views
878
Replies
6
Status
Closed
Our ad agency did a 2 page color brochure using Quark and supplied a PDF of 220K which I posted on our website. I later needed to add some info to both pages, so I opened the PDF in Photoshop CS (which rasterized it) and did the changes. I ended up with a 6MB+ file by saving each page as a tif and importing into Acrobat 5. I was able to reduce it to about a 4MB+ file by saving the changed pages as PDF in Photoshop, then combining the pages in Acrobat 5.

I was looking into getting Acrobat 7 to utilize the Reduce File size feature. Will this cause errors (file be unreadable) if someone using Acrobat Reader 3, 4 or 5 tries to view the file? Will this likely go much below 2MB+ per page? (In other words, is it worth the time and money to get Acrobat 7.)

Is there a better solution to ending up with a small PDF that can be emailed and donwnloaded from the web, yet still have my changes, without going back to the ad agency.

Thanks.
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BL
Bob Levine
May 15, 2007
Photoshop is NOT a PDF editor. In fact, PDFs are not intended to be edited at all.

That said, if you need to change a bit of text it can be done in Acrobat and with the use of some third party plugins other editing can be accomplished.

But Photoshop will simply rasterize it and in the process destroy any quality and blow up the file size.

Bob
AC
Art Campbell
May 15, 2007
Well, you’re a little late for 7… the Acrobat current release bumped up to 8 last year.

That said, yes, go ahead and get it. It won’t cause the file bloat the PS does when you make changes — you should me using Acrobat to make the changes, not Photoshop.

The Optimize PDF feature will only cause problems if you set the parameters incorrectly; but it does allow you to set the level of backward compatibility. (You really, seriously think there are people still using Reader 3 out there?)

Art
DM
Don_McCahill
May 15, 2007
you should me using Acrobat to make the changes, not Photoshop

But remember, Acrobat is only useful at making small changes, not major revisions. For that, you really should go back to the Quark file.
SK
Steve_Kugler
May 15, 2007
Thanks to all for the advice. Going back to the agency is expensive. I know my solution is a kludge, but it is a stopgap until a new brochure replaces the old. I don’t have Quark and I needed to add a couple of lines to a table. Editing in Acrobat 5 wouldn’t allow me to add lines. Is there something out there that could handle adding material to a PDF? I didn’t think Acrobat 7 or 8 could do that either.

I was planning to get Acrobat 7 because it seemed to me that both Acrobat 6 and 8 were buggy. Does anyone know if the Reduce File Size feature would make a significant reduction in a rasterized PDF? Like going from 2MB+ to under a meg?

Art, Now that you mention it, Acrobat 3 is a stretch, but I was more concerned with something I saw that said users with readers below 6 would not be able to open the file once the Reduce File Size option was used. Is this true?

While writing this out I got a brainstorm. Went to photoshop and printed each of the 2MB pages to a postcript file and ran it through Distiller. Two pages came to 540K total. Quality is reasonable (although degraded) on the screen. Not sure how it’s going to print though.

Thanks again to all.
AC
Art Campbell
May 15, 2007
The most memorable optimize I’ve done recently took a file from 20M to less than 1.

If you have Quark, or InDesign, or almost any other page design program, you should be able to use Actobat (8, at least) to save a ..pdf out as source files: RTF and .PNGs, for instance, and reassemble a source document.

In my experience, most people who use Reader tend to be pretty current because it’s free and easy to update. As a general rule, I’ve done backward compatibility to two versions, which would be version 6.

And finally, I have had fewer bugs and other problems with Acrobat 8 Pro than I recall having with any recent version. Certainly fewer than 6 & 7.

Art
BL
Bob Levine
May 15, 2007
Place the PDF in InDesign and just add the type there. Export a new PDF.

Bob

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

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