Print to PDF with Acrobat DC - Alternatives?

Question

I am coming from using Windows with Acrobat X Pro to Mac with Acrobat DC.

On my old PC setup, I would routinely use 'Print to PDF' as a way to reduce file sizes of PDFs created with Ai / other software.

This worked INCREDIBLY well. I would often go from a 30Mb PDFs to <1MB, with minimal loss in quality. It was quick, and my go-to for sending reduced size PDFs to clients. My colleagues swore that they could beat my results with 'Save as Optimized', but no one came close - in ease, quality, or final file size.

This option is gone, and I'm at a loss as to how to achieve the same results with 'Save as Optimized'. Flattening transparencies, downsizing to 150ppi, removing metadata - nothing comes close to my old workflow.

Can someone provide settings for 'Saving as Optimized' that are equal or better than 'Print to PDF'?

Looking forward to your advice.

Karl Heinz Kremer · Accepted Answer

There is a way to setup a printer on Mac OS to print PostScript to a file. I have not done that in a while, so I don't know how that would work on Sierra or even High Sierra. Once you have a PostScript file, you can then run Distiller on it and get similar results as on your Windows system when printing to the "Adobe PDF" printer.

Karl Heinz Kremer · Answer

Print to PDF (or "refrying a PDF" as it is often referred to), is usually a bad idea. It will destroy content in your PDF file and yes, one of the side effects of getting rid of data is that the resulting file will be smaller, but that comes at a cost. Unless you know exactly what refrying a PDF does to your PDF file, I would stay away from it. There are other ways in Acrobat to reduce the size of a PDF file, and you've mentioned one. You cannot compare results between the two different approaches, it's apples and oranges.

Here is an interesting document about refrying PDF files: http://www.gwg.org/wp-content/uploads/RefryingPDF.pdf

To come up with settings that are comparable, you will have to analyze the resolution of your images in your refried PDF file, and then try to mimic these settings on the "Optimize" dialog. You can do that by using the Output Preview function:

The "Object Inspector" give you information about the image attributes like the number of pixels, bits/pixel and what filters are used to compress the image. This is the first thing I would try to mimic in the Optimizer. Then, make sure that all fonts are subset embedded. You can also use the "Audit" tool in the Optimizer to find out what elements are using up how much space. Again, when you compare the two different documents, you should be able to find out what you need to further shrink in size.

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