7 replies to this topic

[Mike Prull]

Has anyone figured out a good way to compress the size of the PDF files when doing a whole set?

 

I know you can select 150 or 300 dpi, but I just don't like that lower quality. It seems like when I do a complete set, the files are around 5 to 10 MB.

 

To take the strain off my e-mail , I have been uploading to Dropbox and then sending the link out. But a lot of my clients don't know how to either download the file or view or they can't open on their phone. 

 

I did a search on Google and there are plenty of ways to do it, just wondering if anyone has a proven and easy way of doing it.

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

Mike

 

 

[Keith Almond]

Typically email can normally cope with files up to 15MB, and there's no more strain on the email, than there is uploading to Dropbox.

 

I typically reduce my complete set PDF's to 300 dpi (and they are normally between 10MB and 13MB once they are reduced) and there is no appreciable visible drop in quality - lets face it your monitor probably is 96 dpi ... 300 dpi is normal for reasonably high quality prints. We also quite regularly print 300 dpi 36" x 24" ARCH D drawings from the PDF's, and again don't notice any visual drop in quality.

 

PDF are quite well compressed anyway. and I don't think that there is any way to compress them further without decreasing the resolution. Regardless of the program used.

[Don Gibbons]

Mike, at 300 dpi there's not really any visible difference in print quality and it makes your PDF's about half the size.

 

One of the things I have noticed is that images can increase the size of a PDF significantly. I've created PDF's with and without my logo and it makes a significant difference, reducing it by about 1/3 the size. I've been playing with the idea of make my logo just lines and paint to see what difference that makes. If you want to stay at 600 dpi, you may want to look at changing other things on your drawings to compensate.

[Keith Almond]

Actually surprised ...

 

I tried on of the online PDF compression utilities, and it took a 10MB file down by 25% ... having said that, I've no idea what it did to the dpi and have no way of checking, but viewing the PDF, again, there's no obvious visual deterioration at 100%

 

 

Now experimenting further,

 

This is the original 300 dpi PDF at 800% magnification

 

 

and this is the online compressed version at the same 800% magnification.

 

 

Looking at this at 800%, I don't think that you lose too much exporting at 300 dpi, but in my opinion the further compression (at least online) isn't worth the trade off in quality.

[Keith Almond]

This is Softplan's 150 dpi export @ 800% magnification:

 

 

and just for comparison 600 dpi @ the same 800%

 

 

and the relative sizes are:

 

 

The standard one is the 300 dpi version. - So 600 dpi = 13921 KB, 300 dpi = 10818 KB, 150 dpi = 8187 KB and the online compressed version is 7648 KB.

 

In conclusion, all the compression utilities seem to be doing is reducing the quality as the online compressed version looks to be 96 dpi or lower.

 

I like the 300 dpi quality/size tradeoff, and if I have to, I really don't have a problem with Softplan's 150 dpi export - However, the online compression is definitely out of the question.

 

For quality comparison, this is our logo from my cover page using Softplan's 150 dpi export at 100%

 

[Tom Rogers]

I gave up on trying to compress and send and hope they make it or not.  Also with having sets up to 30 pages can rather large.  With that said I just ended up getting Adobe PDF pack for $70/year.  I can combine, sign, send an track PDFs with no problem.  

[Keith Almond]

Mike ... Another alternative would be to use WETRANSFER.COM instead of Dropbox. With Wetransfer, the recipient gets a email message that there is a file to download. You can send files up to 2GB free.

[Brian Berzinskis]

Is there any way to set the default for all PDF exports to be 300 dpi or something else to avoid having to check the box every time?

 

I have been using box.com with its integration with my email client Thunderbird because when it detects a large attachment (I think over 5 mb) it uploads to box automatically and creates the link in the email for me to send out. Which is nice but it has its confusion on the receiving end when users are not computer savy.