Can you compress gradient mesh objects when exporting to pdf?

[lauragalora99]

I have an illustration that has multiple gradient mesh objects in it and upon exporting to a pdf it's massive no matter what I do with compression. The file is only 8.5x11 but has a multitude of little water drops created with gradient meshes. Is there any trick to getting an emailable pdf around 10mb or so when you're dealing with such detailed objects?

[Monika Gause]

Emailable for which purpose?

If you want to send your portfolio, maybe just rasterize the complete artwork (make a copy of the file of course)

If this is for printing: don't use e-mail. Put it on a server, share the file via Creative Cloud or whatever is appropriate.

[lauragalora99]

It's a package design that I need to email to the client and various others to view and approve. I ended up exporting a jpeg but a pdf would be preferable so they can zoom in and see everything clearly up close. It's one of about 10 different concepts that need to be shared to numerous people that are not server savvy, hence the email request. Is there no way to compress grad mesh?

[Monika Gause]

Sounds like the perfect example for sharing your work for commenting.

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/help/share-for-comment.html 

[lauragalora99]

Unfortunately I cannot due the NDA I have signed for this client 😞

[Monika Gause]

You could limit it to certain e-mail addresses, but then people would need to sign in. So you're in a tight squeeze here. 

[lauragalora99]

Oh, I see what you mean! I thought you were asking me to share it HERE for commenting in this forum! Well, yes that is a good idea, however, I am not privy to all who need to view this thing so that wouldn't work here. There are various stakeholders from other companies etc. This issue also popped up again for me today with another document that must be emailed as it's an event brochure. It has this very detailed illustration background with a boatload of points that I had to rasterize and replace in ai in order to get it small enough to email. Royal pain in the arse if I have to edit it numerous times.