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Batch downsample all images in a document

Community Beginner ,
Dec 13, 2020 Dec 13, 2020

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Hi,

could anyone point me in the right direction. Is there a way in InDesign to resave the document "for web" so that all images are downsampled to 72 ppi? That is apparently without changing the size of the image as it appears on a page in the document.

The goal is to have a small draft document for preview purposes. In my scenario there is an Idml document with a package (Links folder) where thousands of images (Png and AI format) are stored. Some of the images are 100Mb and larger, so complete package could be several Gigs.

I need to either re-package the document so that all links are downsampled or to batch downsample all images in the Links folder using any other Adobe application, like Photoshop. The challenge is that any image format which can be used (imported) by InDesign should be handled.

 

Any ideas please?

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How to , Import and export , Scripting

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Community Expert ,
Dec 13, 2020 Dec 13, 2020

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Do you need to provide native InDesign files and linked images or do you need to provide an exported file, like PDF or epub? If the latter just change you export settings. If the former you could run a Photoshop action on the Links folder to resample, but that has serious limitations. It can only resample to one scale (say 300 ppi to 75 ppi, or 25% or some other global change). This won’t help if your images are of varrying effective resolution. For that you need something smarter. Scripting might work, but I know nothing about scripting. I have used Output Factory. If can resample to a desired effective resolution regardless of native resolution or scaling. For example a 300 ppi image scaled to 50% and a 100 ppi image scaled to 20% will both be scaled to the same effective ppi. It can also crop images to further save space.

 

https://zevrix.com/outputfactory/

 

 

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 14, 2020 Dec 14, 2020

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Hi Scott, thank you for the link. I have seen that before, but have not tried. Based on the description it looks like it will export the document into other format, which is not what I need. But I will install and see what it can do.

Meanwhile I have written a jscript for Photoshop which downsamples all AI files in the selected folder. InDesign will complain that layers have changed but the link itself remains valid, which is good enough.

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Explorer ,
Dec 13, 2020 Dec 13, 2020

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 14, 2020 Dec 14, 2020

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Hi zuzu_kuc1, thank you for the link. Not quite what I need but close enough.

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Explorer ,
Dec 14, 2020 Dec 14, 2020

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So it looks like no one understands your question 🙂
If it is a reduction of bitmaps (because you do not reduce the vector so much) then you can use an action in photoshop, which will reduce all bitmaps in the Links folder

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 14, 2020 Dec 14, 2020

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The tool may solve this problem, I only wish I could test it beforehand. Making changes to the document and creating copies of the images is not an ideal solution in my case, but it could work.


There is a "package" command in InDesign. It creates Links and Document fonts folders. The links folder has all linked images. It will be huge in my case. The goal is to make this folder small and yet allow InDesign to open the document without broken links.

There can be two ways to solve that: (1) downsample all images in the document and then package it, or (2) package the document and then downsample images in the Links folder.
As far as I understand the tool changes the document by changing the links it refers to and will create copies of the original images but smaller. In theory if I run it before document is packaged it should produce Links folder with small images. This could be a solution, the only thing is that I need an extra step to restore images in the document. If tool would just downsample images in place then Idml file could be passed back to the creator as is and it will pick up all the original resources
. I will try that option.
If I use that tool after packaging then it will bloat the Links folder with downsampled copies of the images and will effectively make it bigger instead. This will not work for my needs as is.

 

But thank you for the link, I will try it.

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Explorer ,
Dec 14, 2020 Dec 14, 2020

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you can find script which downsample all of you links (bitmaps)
Then you can pack the whole document, and then with one click you can revert back you original (large) links. Google will help 🙂

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 14, 2020 Dec 14, 2020

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Yes, I was exactly looking for such a script, but I could not find one (one which can downsample all the links right in the document opened in InDesign), hence asked here.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 14, 2020 Dec 14, 2020

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The goal is to have a small draft document for preview purposes. 

 

How will the .INDD file be previewed without converting it into a readable web format like a PDF?

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 14, 2020 Dec 14, 2020

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Hi Rob, this part of the problem has already been solved.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 14, 2020 Dec 14, 2020

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How? What’s the display format?

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 17, 2020 Dec 17, 2020

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Hi Rob, it's nothing extraordinary, in this particular instance image format is used.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 17, 2020 Dec 17, 2020

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So why not downsample when you convert the page to the image format? You can set the resolution to anything when you export a page to JPEG or PNG and all of the page’s linked images will be downsampled to that resolution.

 

Same is true for PDF exports, you can force an export resolution for all of the links via the Compression tab

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 17, 2020 Dec 17, 2020

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That is because the point is to reduce upload size, not download size.

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