Illustrator PDF scales up all images

[Roberto28325488p7zl]

Hi. I really wish to know if there's any way to configure illustrator PDF file to embed images as they are without scaling them up or changing their format. I got many PNG and JPEG files of width 1920 pixels and they're about 50 to 75 KB each (some JPEG about 150 KB). But when saving them as PDF files they become 9 MB. Is there any way not to scale them up or to embed them as they are? Thanks in advance.

[Ton Frederiks]

Check the compression settings in the pdf settings for downsampling and compression type.

I don't think you can just embed the images as they are compressed.

[Roberto28325488p7zl]

In fact I have an alternative. But it is strange that Adobe doesn't give the option not to compress. In fact if you downsample the compression ratio to 72 dpi, you still don't save a lot in size. My alternative that I have been doing is through LaTex code. The LaTex app generats the PDF without modifying any image. I wish Adobe does the same thing.

[Ton Frederiks]

I think it would be a good option not to recompress images if they are unchanged.

Interesting, so the LaTex app can take an Illustrator file and generate a PDF from it?

[Roberto28325488p7zl]

No. If you import a PDF from illustrator, the PDF is already modified (or scaled up). LaTex app will include it as is. The best practice to get out of the unnecessary file size is to get an illustrator PDF for all vector graphics as well as PNG-8 bits. The PNG-8 won't be modified. The problem is only with JPEG. Some JPEG optimizing software will really shrink the JPEG to it's quarter size without noticing any artifacts or blurry or pixelated results. These JPEG optimized files will be distorted if they are brought to illustrator and saved as PDF with the default setting. Thus, I would bring any illustrator PDF file to LaTex app as far as it doesn't have a JPEG file embedded. I would normally add the original JPEG to LaTex directly together with a vector PDF from illustrator (if necessary). This way the PDF generated by LaTex will embed the JPEG without any modifications. It's a Hussle to do that, but I don't have alternative. When a university journal asks for a research of 30 pages below 10 MB and that research has 30 JPEG images, the PDF file produced by Adobe illustrator will be about 100 MB. Whereas, the LaTex PDF is about 4 MB with the same quality. I already have many articles produced in both illustrator and LaTex. It will save me a lot of time if Adobe gives that option. Of course, you can link those images in Adobe illustrator without embedding them, but then you have to submit many files. And again it's not accepted. This is why most universities imply Latex in researches. I just wish Adobe will fix this issue.

[Ton Frederiks]

Like I said, I think it would be a good option not to recompress images if they are unchanged. To get your request known by the engineers, you can post a feature request at Uservoice: https://illustrator.uservoice.com/

[Met1]

Not sure what you are meaning by "scale them up" but I certainly understand that the way Illy saves a pdf with images is not what I often expect. I just exported a file from InDesign to pdf (Press Quality) and get a 2.3M file (it contains a 60x28 72dpi image that has been cropped and scaled to give and effective dpi of 40- not great but it's going on Amormesh so ok-ish). I'd already quit out of InDesign (I rarely use it) forgot there was ONE small text change (one letter typo!), opened the pdf in Illy, saved out and file is now 40M (Illustrator Default). I went back to the original 2.3M file made the change and saved as Press Quality pdf - 22M. I went back to InDesign, made the change there, saved as Press Quality get the same 2.3M pdf...