Reducing PDF file size

[Barry Kelly]

Does anyone have a suggestion for a program that can reduce the size of a PDF file that is created from Archicad by Publishing?

Preferably one that is free or maybe shareware.
I have tried two so far (PDF Compress 1.0 & PDFCompressor 1.12) but both just slightly increased the file size.
I'm having trouble at the moment getting to the download for Arcrobat 9.0 to trial it.
Even if it does work I can't see the company wanting to get 80 odd licenses just to make the file size smaller.

Publishing as a PDF from Archicad is very convenient (set up once - publish often).
Printing the same file as a PDF using the old Amyunii PDF converter results in a file about 1/3 the size but then there are issues of ensuring the printer is set up correctly, landscape and portrait pages must be printed separately, file path and name needs to be selected each time as it is not stored as in the publisher.

So publishing is my preferred option.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
Barry.

[Chazz]

OSX comes with a Quartz filter to reduce file size of PDF's and it can work well on ArchiCAD-generated content (unlike Acrobat Pro which, when you do a Reduce File Size command, actually makes the file bigger -thanks Adobe ). If you have someone in the office with a Mac this could be a solution.

Edit. Though I've never tried it, I imagine that using the Quartz file reducer could be made part of an Automator workflow so that publishing and file reducing could be done in one step.

[Thomas Holm]

Adobe Acrobat Pro's Reduce file size usually works well on PDFs that contain any pixel (bit-mapped) images, like photos or scanned maps. It reduces their quality and then re-compresses them. That means you'll lose some image quality, usually a tolerable trade-off.

If possible, you can reduce published PDF size by turning off transparency for included images (placed using the Image tool).

I don't know any program that can substantially reduce PDFs that only contain vector information. You migh get results by using only standard system fonts (like Arial) that do not need to be included in the PDF.

If the Aymuni files are OK, you could use Acrobat Pro to join them to a layout book backwards so to say, but that's nothing I'd recommend. I find Archicad's publishing very efficient except when there are combined images and some of them are transparent in addition.

[Chazz]

See, this is the thing. I think that the Quartz method can reduce vector heavy files (though this is hard for me to test because my file are usually a mix or raster and vector). Still, where the Quartz method really works well is when vector PDF's have been post manipulated in something like Illustrator. This always balloons the size and Acrobat "pro" does NOTHING to help this. Quartz can knock these files down to 10% or less of what there were when save in Illustrator.

[Thomas Holm]

Chazz wrote:
Still, where the Quartz method really works well is when vector PDF's have been post manipulated in something like Illustrator.

That might be true if the method allows truly getting rid of non-printing content of a PDF.

If you crop a PDF in Illustrator, it will just add a viewport, telling the display device or printer what to display. The rest will still be there but not print.

If the Quartz method would give a true crop that could work. I haven't tested it.

[Anonymous]

Barry

We had a similar issue going on here and it came down to the e-plans from Cottage from memory the jpeg or bmp had to have the transparency off in the figure tool settings.

[Barry Kelly]

Thanks everyone.
Unfortunately no Macs in the office.

And no e-plans in the file either Kristian - this is just a standard model plan with no siting as yet.
But it will help out with our jobs that do have the e-plans.

I'm just frustrated that the Amyuni converter that came with Archicad some years ago is more efficient than the built in converter that is there now.
This was Graphisoft's response -
"Yes, the file size is bigger, as the ArchiCAD PDF can handle transparency, transparent fills use a lot more space than in the one produced by the Amyuni driver. Please make sure you are not creating LARGE fills with many points (i.e. short lines in them) like cement render, sandstone."

I will play with our plans some more and see if I can change anything.
We have no images with transparent backgrounds.
Some of our material fills do have a transparent background and the drawing of the model placed on the layouts have transparent backgrounds but this is the same for built in and Amyuni converters.
So I can't see why the difference.
The PDFs produced by either converter look identical in the end.

Barry.

[Thomas Holm]

Barry wrote:
Some of our material fills do have a transparent background and the drawing of the model placed on the layouts have transparent backgrounds but this is the same for built in and Amyuni converters.
So I can't see why the difference.
The PDFs produced by either converter look identical in the end.

I think the difference comes from the fact that the Amyuni converter acts like a printer, that is it replaces transparency with the actual resulting composites, and also removes non-printing content. YOu might find some additional infohere.
Also, you might experiment with using Acrobat Pro's Reduce file size set to compatibility with an old Adobe version, such as Acrobat 5 or older. This would also remove transparency.

[Chazz]

Barry wrote:
I'm having trouble at the moment getting to the download for Arcrobat 9.0 to trial it.
Even if it does work I can't see the company wanting to get 80 odd licenses just to make the file size smaller.

Barry, Even though I doubt Acrobat Pro would help with this situation (though Quartz might), it is a vital part of our workflow (we have hundreds of licenses of CS4 here) and am not sure how, exactly you have survived without it to date.

80+ AC licenses, no Mac's and not a single copy of CS4? Are you writing from the public terminal at the Western Australia State Penitentiary?

[Thomas Holm]

Chazz wrote:
...Are you writing from the public terminal at the Western Australia State Penitentiary?