My lowres pdf is 300mb, normally it should be about 10 mb max.

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
June 8, 2024
4 replies
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I want to create a PDF with the smallest file size. However, it will be 300 MB in size, while normally it is a maximum of 10 MB. I use large images, more than 600 dpi, but they should be automatically reduced in size with a low-res PDF. Is there a setting that is preventing it from working as I would expect? I already read something about downsampling, but I can't find that when I export.
Can anyone help me further?

Import and export

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danpinho

Known Participant

You placed complex AI/EPS (Transparency, Multiply, etc.)
To identify the problem, try converting them (the suspicious ones) to JPG (not ideal, I know) and save PDF again.

Hope it helps

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

If a document is not behaving well then try

File>Export

Choose IDML

Open the IDML in InDesign
Save the file as a new InDesign file with a new name
See if the issue persists.

H

hanneke61Author

Known Participant

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried this but it didn't help. The PDF was the same size again. Then I created a new document and dragged all the pages into it. This also gave an equally large file.
I make a similar booklet every year, I exported last year's booklet and that worked well, it was 5 MB.
Is there anything else I can try?

H

hanneke61Author

Known Participant

Stating an images DPI or PPI is not a useful figure, despite it being commonly tossed around. You can have a one-inch by one-inch image that's 300 pixels by 300 pixels that is an "1800ppi image" — that figure is just an arbitrary number assigned by Photoshop or the like to indicate what print or display size the image is meant to be.

The important figures are the actual pixel dimensions of the image — such as 900 x 600, or 3000 x 6000, or such, and that will be more or less proportional to the actual source file size (1 meg, 10 megs, etc.)

I suspect you are using enormous and probably oversized image files and not taking the right steps for them to be downsampled to a reasonable export size and PPI. But an answer has to start with —

Some representative image sizes, in pixel height and width;
Some representative image sizes, in source file size of kb or Mb;
A total of how many images you are using in this document.

As for AI images, there are many reasons they can be large (too large), such as embedding high-resolution raster (photo) images in them.

I think all of the images you're using need to be reviewed at a technical/format/size level to get you to a usefully small PDF.

thank you for your answer. I will check all images for size in relation to final formats. but what I don't understand is that last year's folder with images is the same size as this year's, but that the differences in PDF format are so great. like the image in my previous post. And I also don't understand why a simple AI image is already so large in my previous message. there is no raster image in it. not even in hidden layers or anything.