What the...?! Buttons in large interactive PDF make up 25mb of a 28mb PDF?!

[bradj81652552]

Hi,

PLEASE HELP!

Indesign CC, 240 page doc with an A master page that has 38 buttons/interactive elements. The A master is on 97% of all pages. When exported as interactive PDF, including the A master, file size is 27mb. Without it, same export is 2.7mb.

Why this? And how can I reduce file size?

Cheers

B

[bradj81652552]

Sorry, forgot to mention all interactive elements are type. Specifically, just Helvetica Neue LT Std 47.

[Test Screen Name]

if you own Acrobat Pro use File - Save as - Optimised PDF. Click Audit Space Usage. What does it report? Still, I'd expect a lot of pain from 9000+ form fields.

[Eternal Warrior]

Just to add on to what Test Screen name points out... 27 MB for a 240 page PDF with 97% comprised of form fields/interactive elements is not exactly terrible.

I have made Gb PDF's before when I started out - that had far fewer pages or anything else for that matter.

You could, however, try opening the PDF in Acrobat then click File> Save as Other...> Reduced Size PDF...

and see if that takes any further "weight" out of the file size.

[Eternal Warrior]

Although now I read my post the last bit is fairly similar to Test Screen Name anyway...

I don't know if I should delete my comment.

[BobLevine]

Nothing wrong with your comment and I would +1 it.

It's no secret that I've become less and less of a fan of interactive PDF for many things that people try to use it for. Without more detail on this project, I'll withhold judgement.

[bradj81652552]

Yeah, to clarify I have optimised and reduced and tried all the standard options as per I usually do when exporting, including fonts & font subsets (as you'll see that's where the major bloat is from audit) but with only about a 9mb size reduction to 18mb.

The interactive elements/buttons are shown below:

I placed it on A Master as I assumed that it would be re-using the elements rather than recreating new instances for every page?!

I also assumed that because the buttons only consist of type (same font), the increase in file size would be negligible?

The audit is below:

As you'll see there's also a fair chunk in Acrobat forms - although only using interactive buttons and not any form field etc. Why is that also bloated?

Thoughts? I've been working on a solution for days trying to get this to a client. If Interactive PDF fails to produce a reasonable file size with such simple elements, I'm starting to question it's existence!

Thanks

B

[Steve Werner]

>As you'll see there's also a fair chunk in Acrobat forms - although only using interactive buttons and not any form field etc. Why is that also bloated?

Acrobat sees a button as a type of form field.

[bradj81652552]

> Acrobat sees a button as a type of form field.

But 5MB worth, for the same buttons? This must mean that it's creating new instances of the buttons for each page - even though they have unique identifiers? It doesn't make sense

[Test Screen Name]

If they have unique identifiers then clearly each one must be a separate object. These are much more heavyweight than links - you have far too many form fields for stability I'd say.

[bradj81652552]

So, what everyone is telling me is that perhaps the simplest interactive navigation menu I've created in 20 years of design is, in 2017, going to make the PDF unusable on the web?

No one has any suggestions of how to fix this? Does anyone know how to ask Adobe directly? I just can't accept that Adobe would make such a major error in development of their interactive PDF design output. SAY IT AIN'T SO!

[MW Design]

Have you tried just making the Navigation directly in Acrobat where the hyperlinks go to the required PDF page?

It's not just the 5 megs that stands out to me, the 11 megs for the embedded fonts seems a bit over the top.

[Steve Werner]

Acrobat buttons generally take up less file space than those created in InDesign. It's just the way it is.

[bradj81652552]

>>Have you tried just making the Navigation directly in Acrobat where the hyperlinks go to the required PDF page?

I'd have to make it/copy for each page and then rebuild if any changes requested etc? Impractical in this case unfortunately?

>>It's not just the 5 megs that stands out to me, the 11 megs for the embedded fonts seems a bit over the top.

Absolutely agree! I've never seen a fonts folder that big!

[MW Design]

Further to what Bob's saying, most people leave the default browser reader set to as installed. Which means Chrome uses its own, FF uses its own, etc.

In my somewhat limited experience for interactive PDFs for the world at large such as you may be making (I have made them for interwebs wherein the PDF reader is set in stone), many/most of those readers do not handle interactive PDFs well. Now, for something as simple as page navigation they may well work, though.

They (interactive PDFs) rarely (if ever) work on a mobile device. Do test in a variety of browsers where the browser uses its built-in reader.

[BobLevine]

On the web? Why would you want to use this in a browser?

Interactive PDF in anything other than Acrobat/Reader is not likely to function properly.

[philippanmei]

While exporting to Interative PDF choose Compression and change the JPEG Quality and put Resolution (ppi) upto your satisfaction. It will helps you to reduce size. see the screenshot

Hope it works.

Thanks

[Test Screen Name · Accepted solution]

This can be helpful - but it won't affect the size of embedded fonts. On that subject, I'm guessing InDesign is including multiple copies of the fonts. So why not abandon the fonts? I guess these are not actually fillable fields. So set up the navigation text as regular InDesign text. Then overlay text-free form fields over them for the actions.

On reflection, scratch that. If all you want is links, use hyperlinks. Form fields are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Learn how to create, manage, and edit hyperlinks in InDesign  ("Create a hyperlink to a page").