PDF Export Compression in 2025. Help me understand why.

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
April 24, 2025
2 replies
341 views

I'm infuriated. I didn't know this setting was on all the "lowest settings" by default and I sent a resume / portfolio out last night. Why are we still compressing anything in 2025; especially on Low.

thank you

B

Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

The PDF export settings you described do not sound at all like the Illustrator Default option in Adobe PDF Presets.

Under the Illustrator Default preset the Compression listings for color, grayscale and monochrome bitmap images is lossless ZIP. Images are set at "Do Not Downsample" as well.

J

Jason_JLDAuthor

Known Participant

They are now. They weren't then. They were default and not settings I would alter.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

There are so, so many sub-flavors of PDF. The program leaves it to you to set all the settings. It is a busy dialog box, and there is much to read. Next time, read it carefully and also take the time to make a PDF settings preset.

Mike Witherell

J

Jason_JLDAuthor

Known Participant

I think it would make far more sense for Illustrator to ask if you want to compress your file when saving to PDF, while highlighting it's size. Sort of like Photoshop highlighting the file size when requiring a PSB save. It's really about the software's intention to produce high quality output by default.

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