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New Participant
December 11, 2023
Question

Reduce PDF file size after exporting or when exporting from InDesign

  • December 11, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1998 views

Hi Everyone,

 

It is my first time posting here.

I have searched the community for an answer to this and found a couple of posts, but I'm unable to downsize the file.

The report is about 120 pages and it has lots of linked ai files containing bar graphs and pie charts. All this files are about 1Mb to 1.5Mb. Is there a way to make these smaller? I'm guessing these are what make the "Content Streams" big. The report has a few photos, but not many and none are bigger than 1.5Mb.

 

 

The report Exports to about 82Mb when using "Smalles File Size" export features. If I open it in Acrobat Pro and save it as Reduced File Size, it doesn't reduce more dan a Mb here and there. 

What can I do?

Also somethig curious... the fist time I saved a draft (before I added the photos to the cover and section covers) the report saved as a 25Mb PDF file. So I thought it was the photos, but I deleted all the photos to test it and it didn't make a difference.

Another thing I did was create stories so the proof-reader could work on the text in InCopy. I thought maybe this was what blew up my file, but I unliked all the stories, etc. and the PDF still exports big.

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Inspiring
December 11, 2023

To reduce PDFs for preview, i use 

https://www.ilovepdf.com/compress_pdf

Often better results than from Acrobat Pro (file size). Do not use for print things and for interactive forms (makes forms uneditable).

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Community Expert
December 11, 2023

You can only compress things so far, even for vector objects like your illustrator piecharts and graphs, the code needed to describe those objects has a limit. and, in fact, tend remain consistent in size no matter what PDF export ssertting you use. Since compression primarily targets image-based objects, where you have the opportunity to reduce resolution and save with higher compression. None of that affects vector code (unless you have use extendive placed/embedded images in those, of course). In reality, for 120 pages, 82MB is not unreasonable.

Your audit report shows the amount attributed to images, so they don't seem to be the issue. However, Content Streams contain all the ID-native text/objects along with all the postscript/PDF code from the AI files. If you want to source out if a particular placed file be the culprit(s), try make segmented PDFs. e.g save the first half as one PDF, and the remaining pages as another. Compare those sizes. If one is particularly larger than the other, split that one in half, etc etc. This will lead you to pages with "fat" objects on it. Also: if you have some complex graphics as Parent Page items, that could easily add up. But, if all these separate PDFs add up to about 82MB.

Failing all that, try save out as IDML and reopen that. this might chear out some clutter that is complicating in your file.

 

 

New Participant
December 18, 2023

Hi Brad, I was able to see what was causing all the Mb! it was actually not the graphs, but some maps that I had as PDFs. 

This PDFs are somehow editable when I open them on Illustrator, but for some reason are always missing a bit of the map so I was not able to save them on Illustrator as non-editable PDFs. How can I do that on Acrobat PRO? 

 

I've attached two images of the maps in Acrobat and in Illustrator with the missing bits. I don't know why this bits show missing when I open them in illustrator. This maps were created by my client on some kind of mapping platform.

  

 

 

 

 

  

 

Cheers 🙂

Brad @ Roaring Mouse
Community Expert
December 18, 2023

It all depends on what program created those PDFs to begin with. If they aren't Illustrator files (look at the PDF's document properties), then opening them IN Illustrator is not the best way. The fact they are already PDFs means they are already compressed as best as they could be; vector maps tend to have a lot of vector points and that increased complexity will quickly add up.