Reducing large PDF documents for web publishers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Clif Notes
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Clif Notes

Hi folks,

One of the readers of my newsletter writes me with this question ...

''Clif, you may not be the right source but perhaps you'll lead me in
the right direction. I've uploaded pdfs of the church newsletter on the
web site and the download time is longer than anyone will reasonably
wait. I subscribed to a pdf ripper thinking that it would turn them
into html. What I got was unuseable. Suggestions, please?''

I've never used a freeware program that can "reduce" pdf's, but maybe
someone here knows about something that might do this, or maybe an
alternative to PDF that is more compact.

Thank you all,

Clif
http://freewarewiki.com/NewsLetters
 
Clif said:
Hi folks,
....
I've never used a freeware program that can "reduce" pdf's, but maybe
someone here knows about something that might do this, or maybe an
alternative to PDF that is more compact.

Thank you all,

Clif
http://freewarewiki.com/NewsLetters
Click to expand...

Hey Clif;

What little I know is that each pdf "publisher" seems to output
different sizes for the same file. I haven't investigated it further
than that. Two publishers I use are: the one built into OpenOffice and;
PDFCreator.

Interesting test...measure output size from the various publishers...

hth,
-Craig
 
Clif said:
''Clif, you may not be the right source but perhaps you'll lead me in
the right direction. I've uploaded pdfs of the church newsletter on the
web site and the download time is longer than anyone will reasonably
wait. I subscribed to a pdf ripper thinking that it would turn them
into html. What I got was unuseable. Suggestions, please?''
Click to expand...

They shouldn't create pdf's to begin with.
There are formats that takes a lot less space.

If you cannot do anything about the creation of pdf's you can pick the
pdf apart into text and pictures. Reduce the size of pictures by
changing their resolution.
Put it together in another form, like rtf files, html files or doc, or
upload text and pictures separately and let the visitors to the web
site look at the text and the picture files separately.
I've never used a freeware program that can "reduce" pdf's, but maybe
someone here knows about something that might do this, or maybe an
alternative to PDF that is more compact.
Click to expand...

You can not reduce the size of pdf's much by compression.
 
What little I know is that each pdf "publisher" seems to output
different sizes for the same file. I haven't investigated it further
than that. Two publishers I use are: the one built into OpenOffice and;
PDFCreator.

Interesting test...measure output size from the various publishers...
Click to expand...
I also noticed the difference once when I made a document by scanning into
OpenOffice so I have just done a quick test as suggested.

A single page (html) of text, a bit of simple formatting but no graphics.

Using OpenOffice and exporting as a .pdf - 64 Kb
Using OpenOffice and printing as a pdf (PDFcamp - $ware.) 9 Kb.
Wonder why the difference?. Does OpenOffice embed the fonts perhaps?
 
I also noticed the difference once when I made a document by
scanning into OpenOffice so I have just done a quick test as
suggested.

A single page (html) of text, a bit of simple formatting but no
graphics.

Using OpenOffice and exporting as a .pdf - 64 Kb
Using OpenOffice and printing as a pdf (PDFcamp - $ware.) 9 Kb.
Wonder why the difference?. Does OpenOffice embed the fonts
perhaps?
Click to expand...

I had an image file which created a 200K PDF document but after only
a little bit of image manipulation it created a 1,500 KB PDF using
the same utility.

ISTR using a utility (I forget the name) to compress the large PDF
but it took a LOT of PC power and the final PDF showed a slightly but
noticeably distorted image. However it printed ok.
 
Clif said:
Hi folks,

One of the readers of my newsletter writes me with this question ...

''Clif, you may not be the right source but perhaps you'll lead me in
the right direction. I've uploaded pdfs of the church newsletter on the
web site and the download time is longer than anyone will reasonably
wait. I subscribed to a pdf ripper thinking that it would turn them
into html. What I got was unuseable. Suggestions, please?''

I've never used a freeware program that can "reduce" pdf's, but maybe
someone here knows about something that might do this, or maybe an
alternative to PDF that is more compact.

Thank you all,

Clif
http://freewarewiki.com/NewsLetters
Click to expand...


Hi Clif, Hi all, :-)

I think PDF is an excellent format for graphists and everyone who wants
the best quality available in published pictures (e.g. for writing a
guide with screenshots, or for a commercial illustration), but I don't
think its convenience enough for newsletters due to oversized produced
files.
* At my opinion, a doc (or rtf) format would be better, or maybe a
help archive (as a bunch of html pages).
The html writing is somewhat complicated, the doc writing is easy
enough and they are free office suites available for various OSes, so
the subscriber can handle it at no cost. Most of office suites can also
save the created documents at html format too.
So, I wanted to ask the author, with what app is writing his
newsletters (e.g. If he is writing with Open Office or MS Office, is
one step away from altering his format, from pdf to doc or html).
Txt files are very smaller, but i don't like them for newsletters (no
pictures, no formatted writing with fonts and colours).
* Of course, as Fran mentioned, zipping is a must be (specially for
doc-rtf or html-mht formats) .

So I recommend:
* Using a multiplatform free office suite (e.g. Open Office or
AbiWord). This way making sure that his readers with non-Windows
systems, will be able to read his articles.
* Creating an html (or doc) file and zipping it. If he prefers the doc
file, be sure to make available for downloading (or publish a related
download link) for fonts that won't came with Windows installation.
Embedding them is not a good idea, the file is getting bigger, while
font downloading is an one time task.
* Zip and 7zip can reduce a lot the size of file. 7zip is better for
text files (docs or htmls). Both are free and multiplatform.

Of course keep in mind, not everything written here is right, just
because I say so. It's just my opinion.
My best wishes to newsletter author, for a happy writing adventure!!!
Best Regards!!!
Giorgos. :-)
 
They shouldn't create pdf's to begin with.
There are formats that takes a lot less space.

If you cannot do anything about the creation of pdf's you can pick the
pdf apart into text and pictures. Reduce the size of pictures by
changing their resolution.
Put it together in another form, like rtf files, html files or doc, or
upload text and pictures separately and let the visitors to the web
site look at the text and the picture files separately.


You can not reduce the size of pdf's much by compression.
Click to expand...
One of my clients ( http://www.ontarioaquaculture.com/ ) insists on the
use of .pdf and I've taken to calling her Miss Adobe hoping the constant
razzing will change her mind about their use. She feels using them gives
her data better protection from others grabbing her material - I've told
her nothing is secure once it's put up on the web but she won't budge.
Being stuck with dialup because of my geographic location, I have to go
cut the grass, hand wash the dishes and wash 'n wax the vehicles
whenever I load one of these things before it renders - you gotta love
Adobe.
 
''Clif, you may not be the right source but perhaps you'll lead me in
the right direction. I've uploaded pdfs of the church newsletter on the
web site and the download time is longer than anyone will reasonably
wait. I subscribed to a pdf ripper thinking that it would turn them
into html. What I got was unuseable. Suggestions, please?''
Click to expand...

Post it as a .doc file (the user would have to have Office, OO or a
..doc reader to read it).

Post the text as text and the pictures as jpgs.

Post a picture of the document as a jpg.
 
Al said:
Post it as a .doc file (the user would have to have Office, OO or a
.doc reader to read it).

Post the text as text and the pictures as jpgs.

Post a picture of the document as a jpg.
Click to expand...

Hi Al, :-)


I think WordPad (who comes preinstalled with Windows, accesible through
Start->Programs->Accessories->WordPad) covering the basic need for doc
reading.

For advanced formated doc files, MS giving for free (only a viewer, not
an editor) Word Viewer there:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en
, (~11MB download).

OK, OO is a big download, but its a complete office suite. If you need
only the editor (and you don't need a spreadsheet or a presentation),
download Abiword (not only a viewer, but a complete doc editor
solution), comes there: http://www.abiword.org/download/ only at 5MB
(+dictionaries, if you want any). Port for Mac, also available.

Most of Linux distros, comes with OO preinstalled (also with KOffice, a
powerfull office suite for Linux), so I don't think that anyone can
worry about doc reading or editing (at no cost) nowadays, (no matter
which OS preffers).

Best Regards!!!
Giorgos. :-)
 
Post it as a .doc file (the user would have to have Office, OO or a
.doc reader to read it).
Click to expand...

I've found doc files to always be larger than the pdf file created
from it.
Post the text as text and the pictures as jpgs.
Click to expand...

That's probably too much trouble for most people viewing a site.
Post a picture of the document as a jpg.
Click to expand...

That will probably be larger than the pdf, or just plain unreadable
when zoomed to a readable size.

Assuming the newsletter spanned several pages, how about breaking the
pdf into separate pages, which might make the download more bearable?

Gios PDF Splitter & Merger can break the pdf into separate pages.
http://www.paologios.com
 
That's probably too much trouble for most people viewing a site.
Click to expand...

Most people viewing a site wouldn't know what format the various parts
of a page are. They click on the URL and see the page.
 
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