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This article is from August 21, 2007, and is no longer current.
Creating smaller PDFs from a vector-dense book
My friend Sharon Steuer is the author of the Illustrator Wow book. She has a problem with the PDFs she creates for proofing the pages. I’m posting this problem here hoping that someone has a good idea of what to do to help her.
Problem: Since she is doing a book on Illustrator, the pages contain many vector-based illustrations. In the old days, when she used Quark, she could create a PDF that used the low-resolution preview of the EPS art.
But moving over to InDesign, there is no low-resolution preview in InDesign’s Export to PDF feature. So, no matter what she sets for the compression settings, the vector-based artwork comes in as very heavy PDF files that take forever to draw on screen.
I told her a while ago to try printing to PDF and use the Proxy setting, but that was too rough a setting.
I’m opening this up for anyone. What ideas would you suggest to create smaller PDFs with a better quality preview of the vector art?
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Idea #1: Export as JPEG instead. You can specify a reasonably high resolution (such as 150 ppi) and export all the pages. Then use Acrobat Pro or Bridge to convert all those separate images into a single PDF file.
Idea #2: Create a flattener preset that rasterizes everything (move the slider all the way to the left), then export to an Acrobat 4 file with this new flattener preset.
In both cases, text is also rasterized, but…
Oh, in Idea #2, you need to make sure there’s something transparent on each page, of course.
Hey, if you set the Raster/Vector Balance slider to 1 (instead of zero), the text doesn’t seem to get rasterized, while the vector graphics do.
I put all the text on one layer and put the graphics on a different layer, then Option-clicked on the graphics layer to select all those objects, set them to 99.9% opacity, then exported as PDF.
Right. Create a flattener preset that rasterizes everything, set at 1 (great tip David!), and add transparency to any pages that don’t show the checkerboard.
But instead of exporting, print to the Acrobat 8 printer at Smallest File Size. (choose the custom flattener preset in the Print dialog box). Resulting PDF sizes are often 1/2 of what you’d get with the same settings via exporting.
What version of InDesign is she using? CS2 had a problem with PDF bloat that Dov Isaacs acknowledged in the U2U forums.
I’d also try running any PDF through the PDF optimizer in Acrobat Pro.
BTW, those suggestion are just to get the file size down. Depending on how small you can get them, they should draw a bit quicker, no?
It seem to me, and I could be wrong, that rasterizing everything could slow it down even more, though with that you’d just have pictures popping in one at a time instead of vectors redrawing.
Bob,
Ordinarily vector art in a PDF doesn’t take a lot of screen redraw time.
But these are really dense vector illustrations. It’s the kind of art where the vectors add far more to the file size than the equivalent raster art could ever do.
Not knowing what these look like it’s a bit tough to tell but wouldn’t flattening this stuff on export create stitching problems?
And yes, I know it won’t print, but it could look really lousy on screen and you could wind up with lots of little images popping on screen instead of vectors redrawing. And if you turn off smooth line art, the type, having been converted to outlines, will look awful.
Rasterizing is definitely the way to go for quick proofing purposes.
There are actually a couple of built-in actions in Illustrator already for exporting JPGs. She could use one of those or just create a new one with settings that are appropriate for the task.
You could always go back to the old days. Save each page as an eps, place it in Quark, and then create the pdf with the low res previews of the eps:) j/k
Fritz, there are places in the world (such as my office) that you could get shot for merely suggestion such a thing. Crazy fool!!! ;-)
I might as well say make the logo bigger and add a starburst with a dropshadow if I am going to get shot. hehe
I’m not too sure Sharon will want to add something, however, temporary, to the file to flatten.
But David’s tip about setting the flattener to 1 to flatten art but maintain text is brilliant!
Have you tried re-locating the linksfolder containing the vectro-art? InDesign doesn’t kno where to find the vectro images and uses the preview files thus creating a much smaller PDF.
I was struggling with similar problem few months ago. Loads of heavy native ID vector graphics on backgrounds and headings of each page of 200 page catalogue. What I needed those days was layer or object based flattener settings instead of spread or on-the-export based ones.
So I tried creating a lowres bitmap set of graphics and tried to rename the containing folders to force ID to replace them in one go. Unfortunately ID on mac is smarter than I’d wish and apparently doesn’t track the placed images by filepath :(
Second attempt was via scripting. I’m no programmer so the resulting script was unoptimized and thus frustratingly sssssslllllloooooooooooooooooooooww.
I finally ended up with custom font. It embedded only once per PDF and all heavy stuff was stored only as characters. This works best for plain colour/simple gradient background. If you’re using more colour you have to align the shape representing characters manually (which is a pain in the neck in itself) and you may easily end up with setup that’s equally complicated as the problem you’re trying to tackle.
Being on budget I used FontForge (£0.00) which is not able to read Illustrator SVG so I added Inkscape (£0.00) to my toolbox.
I’m wondering if saving the vector images with a b/w preview rather and an 8bit preview would reduce the file size?
Native illustrator files don’t have any preview.
InDesign creates a preview from the file info itself.
Now, ok so, in InDesign, in the Preferences>File Handling under Saving InDesign Files. There are options for image thumbnail size. I made two files with one vector image repeated over and over and over again on one page.
I saved two versions. One with the highest thumbnail preview and the other with the option turned off, no thumbnail preview.
I got two files of different sizes. One is 2.8 mb. The other is 2.5 mb.
The PDF’s exported with the Smallest Setting was also used resulting in smaller file sizes.
I’m not saying this is the solution or the problem, it just might help reduce the file size even further for your friend.
> The PDF?s exported with the Smallest Setting was also used resulting in smaller file sizes.
This is very interesting information. I would never have thought the thumbnail preview could affect PDF output.
I wonder if this will help Sharon.
What I meant to say was that Untitled 1 with preview exported to PDF. Untitled 2 without preview (smaller than U1) exported to PDF resulted in smaller file size than U1.pdf.
Just thought I’d clarify that.
I like the idea of moving the links folder but on the Mac, ID will still find those files. You might have to move the file to another machine.
Another idea might be to create an InCopy assignment. Choose all spreads and don’t include linked graphics. CS3 will keep the low res previews.
InDesign creates a preview file from the .ai file you place. If you move/delete the .ai and create a PDF you get a warning saying the image is missing. But if you just click O.K. you’ll get a low res image in the pdf. All other items will be okay…
woz,
We know about the preview if the file is missing.
But how the hell can you get ID to stop looking at the folder containing the linked images?
As Bob Levine said, it’s really hard, on the Mac, to screw up the linkage.
ID and the Mac OS follow that path with more scrutiny than Dick Cheney and the NSA.
Could you not “stuffit” the links folder and erase it for the sake of making the pdf and then unstuff the links. I know it’s bothersome, but just one way off the top of my brain.
> Could you not ?stuffit? the links folder and erase it for the sake of making the pdf and then unstuff the links.
That’s a very cool idea!
Or just copy the folder to a different partition or server.
I wish it were as simple as copying to a different partition or server.
Most of us don’t work where we have a separate partition or server active at all times.
And then we would have to unmount those partitions or servers. And that’s not always practical.
The best answer would be if we could tell ID not to look for the links. To purposely create missing links.
Another way to quickly hide a folder’s content is to change the owner of the folder to someone else, and apply restrictive access rights.
Dirk!
You don’t even have to change the user!
Just File Info and change the You can list to No Access.
This is fantastic as it doesn’t actually transform any of the files.
I think we have a winner!
This is great. I can’t wait to see the results of this. It would be interesting to see the original file size, a step-by-step change in file size from all who have commented and what the final file size is.
I agree Eugene.
I’ve just shot an email to Sharon and asked her for the results of this technique.
But since she’s on the west coast, and doesn’t start work as early as some people, we may have to wait a little.
I’m in Ireland, I fear I may be the last to know what the results are. I had an unfair disadvantage, I’m PC based and there isn’t a Mac in sight.
There is a way of unlinking the images using InCopy, but I don’t have a copy of InCopy to do it, but I read about it in the Help files some months ago.
Sandee, on my Mac I just have to change the name of the links folder (in my case changing “Links” to “dLinks”) and it immediately loses track of the images. I don’t even have to close the ID file.
I wish it were that easy for me and Sharon.
This is an interesting problem to solve, but it shouldn’t be anywhere near this difficult, especially considering Adobe’s entire suite of print-centric applications are built around PDF as a “web-friendly” format.
I can create a document that consists of only text and vector illustrations built in AI CS2, no raster information whatsoever, no text converted to paths, and fairly simple illustrations (far simpler than what Sharon is likely working with).
I can make an identical layout, same amount of text, and replace all my illustrations with 300dpi TIFFs, big, busy beautiful photographic images.
I can make a PDF of each one and easily get the TIFF-heavy doc much smaller than the vector-based one, even allowing for the TIFF-heavy doc to print well to a 300dpi device at 100%.
There’s nothing I can easily do to get the vector-based doc smaller.
That is stupid.
I agree! Ludicrous. The fact that I have to waste my time even researching an answer to something so fundamental is driving me mad. I’ve been using design software since the 90’s and this is a basic! Surely.
So frustrating.
My document is over 50 pages, and full of charts and graphs (illustrator) and various illustrative graphics also.
The options shown so far leave far to much room for error – when the item is already off to print and approved.
So frustrating.
Joel,
Thanks for recognizing the underlying problem through all this.
PDF handles vectors the same way it handles rules and other small objects on the page. As individual objects.
And there has never been much call for reducing the file size of vector artwork because for most people vector artwork is compact and resolution independent.
It’s when you start working with artists who do photo-realistic vector illustrations as well as cartographers who can easily create 2 GIG files that the problems arise.
The same things that make vector artwork so attractive also make it so damn hard to deal with.
Sharon has asked me over and over why Adobe doesn’t make it easier to reduce the file size of vector-dense files.
I’ve said that in a world where hard disk sizes exploded and digital cameras multiplied like pod people, there never seemed to be much interest in the needs of high-end vector artists.
Well my first thought was to hide the graphics (by .zipping them) but in my tests, the results were the same as printing to Acro 8 with “proxy” enabled for graphics. (Which Sharon said were too blocky, yes?) As soon as you hide the vectors and the Links panel sprouts the stop signs, even the high-res previews revert to low-res ones. ;-(
Is is worth trying with an InCopy assignment? Save it with all spreads and package it. Move it to a different machine to avoid the links and see what happens.
I agree with Vector babe. Of course we can always find a way but it should not be so difficult to create a low res pdf of of and indd file with a lot of placed vector art… I’ve had the same problem with internet pdf files for architects. All those .ai files (created from AutoCad) also lead to a very heavy PDF… For internet a lowres jpeg automated substitute will do just fine.
I had a similar problem recently, and resorted to hiding the graphics on another network partition to make client proofs. But Dirk’s idea of changing the access privileges is a great tip!
I think from all this, that what we need is a user-definable Proxy Resolution field in Print > Output. Right now the proxy is automatically generated at 72 ppi. If we could say we wanted a res of, say, 100 or 150, then we could print to the Acrobat 7 or 8 printer and get a PDF using that proxy. (The proxy panel is not available when exporting to PDF.)
The “flatten every spread” method with a custom Flattener preset (and transparency applied to every page) is essentially doing the same thing but with a heck of a lot more work and steps involved.
With this method, as long as you a) have set up the custom flattener; and b) forced transparency on spreads you want flattened that didn’t have any transparency to begin with; c) chosen a PDF Export method that is Acrobat 4/PDF 1.3 compatible (so the Advanced > Flattener dropdown is accessible); and d) selected your customer flattener in the Advanced panel; then you’ll end up with rasterized proxies of your vector artwork.
You can control the resolution of the proxies in the “line art ppi” field of the custom Flattener. So if you enter 150 ppi there, the flattened vectors are rasterized at 150 ppi.
BUT you need to make sure that the “downsample to” fields in the Compression panel aren’t lower than the flattener (if they are, the compression setting trumps the flattener setting, in my tests). IOW don’t choose “Smallest File Size,” which downsamples to 100 ppi, if you want 150 ppi flattened artwork.
Either choose a different PDF preset (PDF/X-1a, or High Quality Print with PDF 1.3 compatibility), or edit the Compression ppi settings to at least equal or exceed the Flattener ppi setting. When the compression setting is higher than the flattener setting, the flattener setting will be honored.
Note all the above is just from my own tests with complex .ai files placed into ID CS3. I may have gotten something wrong in there.
Sandee (and Sharon), thanks for this challenge! This is fun. ;-)
BTW, I think my earlier comment (#37) must have gotten lost in the shuffle.
As far as I can tell, hiding the graphics does not solve Sharon’s problem. It just forces a 72 ppi preview of the images, which Sandee reported as being too rough. (Setting the output to Proxy does exactly the same thing as hiding the graphics.)
Yes? Or did I miss something. There are a lot of comments to keep track of! ;-)
I’m now wondering would it be good to save all the pages as EPS files, there are settings in the Export to EPS for Proxy images. Then the EPS could be distilled. Perhaps. Don’t hate me for suggesting this. I’m trying to think outside the box :D
I was also tinkering with SVG et al methods of exporting and converting to PDF.
They probably yield the same final outcome though.
Results are in: In a file with just text.
18 pages of text, straight to PDF, 260 kb.
18 pages of same text, exported to EPS, distilled and combined in Acrobat. 110Kb.
Tried it with a 32mb image on the last page.
429kb straight from InD
173kb to EPS, to PDF and Combine.
Am I onto something or way off?
So here’s another idea…how about an object style for all the frames containing the Illy graphics. Set for 99.9% transparency should kick in the flattener. When the book’s ready for press just change the object style?
Eugene, you are correct that the Distiller often makes smaller PDF files, but you don’t have to go the EPS route — just use the Print dialog box. If you have Acrobat Pro, you can just print to PDF and it uses Distiller in the background.
But note that the goal here was not to make a smaller file size; it’s to simplify the intense vector graphics. PDF or EPS or Distiller or not won’t solve that.
David, doing it this way, can’t you select to Omit EPS, PDF and Bitmap images, thus placing a lo-res image in place? Just wondering.
Sorry, half explained my point there, I have to get out of that habit.
Earlier I pointed out that Preferenece>File Handling>Saving InDesign Files>Preview Size
You can have different sizes. Would this be the thumbnail that if you omitted the EPS, PDF and Bitmaps, that InDesign would use to make the PDF, so in theory, you would have higher quality low-res images, if you get me?
I haven’t seen this suggestion, and thought it might help.
If you are using a Mac version of Indesign.
Open the print dialog.Click the” Printer…” button next to “Page Setup…”button. Click on the Pdf button. Choose Save as Pdf.
In my test, the resulting pdfs rasterized large areas of vector data.
Maybe it using Mac Quartz pdf creator instead of Adobe’s?
Joseph, good idea. But in CS3 on a Mac, ID won’t let you choose any of the OSX-driven PDF options, not even the quick and dirty Preview button works. You just get a dialog box telling you it’s not supported.
Did you use CS2 to test it?
Anyway, OSX creates PDF 1.3 (Acro 4 compatible) PDFs, so it’s flattening any transparency automatically. But I’m wondering what the resolution of those flattened images are; since obviously there’s no transparency flattener setting in OS X. Hmm.
Hello-
I know it has been several months since the last response, but was wondering if any new solution has been found. I have InDesign files with several links to 30mb Illustrator files and cannot print or export them to pdf – inDesign crashes.
Well, I just used the ‘missing link’ technique for some complex vector links and reduced an 8.5MB document to 1.2MB, without making any other changes (and the document previews fine on screen, which is all it is going to be used for) – so thanks for this great tip.
Did you try this?
From Indesign go to print your document.
Click the ‘printer’ button.
Choose ‘Save as PDF’.
Click print.
The result is a rasterized pdf
I had the same problem, I solved by:
Saving a copy of all my illustrators -Export- JPG to a medium resolution.
Then I make a copy of my indesign file and I replaced all of them for the JPG files.
Then I exported as another name for PDF with screen presets.
I hope it works for you!
[…] to pdf. And if you have a lot of lines (i.e. placing more than one Illustrator file), check this out, […]
CS5 now, and still no solution to the core of this problem. ADOBE where are you???
@Thomas: I hear your pain, but I’m not sure what you think Adobe should do. If you have an InDesign document that has a lot of vector art, it’s all going to be inserted into the PDF, making it bigger. Just like if you have 5000 pages of words it’ll make a bigger pdf.
@David: I think Adobe should enable vector rasterisation options in the PDF print/export settings. Similar to the settings where you can chose how much you wish acrobat to downscale you raster images there should be an option to do so and to chose the level of detail for the process.
@Thomas: It’s an interesting idea, but how would you determine which vector graphics should be rasterized? Would you want all the text rasterized? Simple vector diagrams and logos? In 99% of the cases, I want everything to stay vector; it’s just a few instances where I really want to rasterize a complex vector. I think it would be interesting if InDesign did offer a way to rasterize one or more objects (or mark them for rasterization), but I don’t think I would use it for pdf very often.
@David: You defintely have a point but I think it can be solved in various ways. Inspired by you I would suggest that InDesign got a new layer option so it became possible to just choose a layer for rasterization BUT with a popup-dialogue where you could check/uncheck different “types of vectors”
Like this:
———————————————————
Chose things to rasterize on export
InDesign items:
– Text
– Line art
Placed items:
– EPS
– PDF
– AI
Output resolution for rasterized vectors:
LOW (72 dpi)
MEDIUM (150 dpi)
HIGH (300 dpi)
CUSTOM | dpi|
OK CANCEL
———————————————————–
But ofcourse, like any other method, this way can have its own ‘issues’ depending on workflow and uasge. I basically think it could be done in thousands of ways with different levels of complexity and ease-of-use, appealing to different users and it doesn’t necessarily need to be my way – just some way, some day :)
@Thomas: Actually, I like your idea more and more, but not because of PDF. For me, the idea of rasterizing objects would be extremely useful for EPUB or even HTML export. So, thanks! Let’s hope that Adobe is listening.
@David: Just in case they don’t, I have filled out a form through their website, suggesting changes done :)
Yep! Same here.. rendered useless in trying to get my stuff up online.. hopefully we’ll see this fixed in the CSS… testes crossed!
I have used this workflow to get lightweight catalogs for web:
1) open linked AI/PDF
2) rasterize what is needed: complex effects, maps etc
3) save but do not close that file
4) update links in Indesign
5) export lightweight pdf in Indesign
6) back to Illu, undo rasterize and save
Silver,
It’s an interesting technique, but a little dangerous. What if the machine crashes between steps 3 and 6.
But if you make a backup of the links folder I would feel a little better.
Well I’m not sure if I want the same thing to happen but I want to make lo res pdfs to send proofs to clients so they are good enough to check but not to print from. When in Indesign I make a lo res pdf the images become rougher but not the text created in Indesign or vector images and I want them to be a bit rougher too – any ideas anyone?
I have had this same problem in the past and this is how i have solved the issue without importing all images in a lower resolution. You need to have acrobat(works with free version) and a pdf printer, I have bullzip pdf printer but adobe one or others may work.
Steps:
-In InDesign: export file as pdf (use lower res on images if you need to)
-In acrobat: go to print—-select your pdf printer—-click the advanced button—-check
print as image(not print to file)—-hit ok—-print to the pdf printer
-In the pdf printer dialog select whatever settings you would like then print.
The result is a rasterized pdf file
Note: in Bullzip, the pdf file will still be somewhat large but much faster to load as it is rasterized. Bullzip also ha the option of printing as different formats like jpg (individual images for each page) or tiff (images combined into one file like pdf).