How to crop PDF files ??

[Anonymous]

Well, this isn't specifically an ArchiCAD problem.

I use scanned bitmap PDF files in my ArchiCAD files. Often these are cropped from multipage PDF files in Acrobat Pro.

The problem is that any cropped drawing (a detail, for example), when made into a file, the file size is no smaller than the original file.

That is to say: the cropped drawing is the same file as the original multipage file, but only the viewport has changed.

I can 'extract' the relevant page from the multipage PDF and then crop it, but it is still large as that full page. This also puts and extra stage in dealing with these files.

Is there a way to actually CROP the PDF, losing all uneeded data, quickly? Acrobat Pro can't seem to be able to do this with scanned bitmap files.

[Anonymous]

Steve wrote:
Instead of cropping your PDF's why don't you just change the size of your viewport window and change the scale?

Hi Steve. The last few days whenever I've tried this forum it seems to have been down.

I'm not sure why you suggest changing scale, as this is not a problem, and there is no problem with setting the drawing scale or rescaling the PDF image in ArchiCAD.

What has bothered me about this is say if I crop a few images from a large multi-page PDF file: all the cropped pictures are in separate PDF files, but all those files are the same size as the original multi-page file file. So what I am essentially doing is just changing the viewport. This could potentially also be a problem if you don't want the rest of the file to be viewed by the recipient for whatever reason.

However, the PDF Optimizer that has been suggested does make the files quite a lot smaller. I'm not certain if the other data has been removed, but it seems to be a good solution. The only problem is that it adds another step to an already clumsy process when cropping out details.

[Thomas Holm]

I've checked, and it's true that Adobe Acrobat only adds a cropping viewport, it doesn't reduce the content of the PDF. If that is what you want, and the PDFs really contain nothing but bit-maps, a photo editor like Photoshop, that allows you to save as PDF is what you need. It will crop and delete the content outside of the crop.

You might also try to print the cropped PDF to a new PDF file, using a PrintToPdf utility. In MacOSX, you can do that with Preview. Adobe won't allow it. In Windows, Aymuni might do it, I don't know.

If the PDFs also contain vector data, it's trickier to crop-and-delete. Illustrator will do it, but not always the way I like it.

[Steve Jepson]

SuperJasE,

I had trouble with the website for a while too.

I think I know what you mean about your PDF files.

Like when I get a set of truss drawings in PDF format and I want to add a few profiles to my drawings. I crop off a lot of the mubojumbo below the diagram and drop that into my ArchiCAD drawings. When you try to do something like this you are getting more than just the image you cropped in Arcobat. Is that right?
I don't seem to have that problem. I am using Acrobat 7.0.8
I go to the page I want a part of, crop it to what i want to see, then I click on Document-Extract Pages-check the Extract Pages As Separate Files box-and save to my job folder. Then place it in ArchiCAD using the Drawing Tool.

Is that what you do too?