Creating Smaller PDFs

[mpkeane]

I am working on a Mac PowerBook, using OS 10.4.11, with VW Designer (Educational Version) 12.5.3

I just drew a courtyard garden design - about 8 layers of various plant types, paths, etc, 2D graphics including color rendering, shadows and the like. I needed to print out a black and white copy at 11" x 17" and so set that up in a viewport and sheet layer and exported it as a PDF. The PDF file was about 3.4 Mb in size.

When I took it to my local Kinkos to print out, however, as the file was printing, it "swelled" to 60Mb while spooling and took 10 minutes to print.

I was able to open the PDF in Adobe Photoshop, flatten it, and save it as a low rez PDF (191k) and then I could print it.

Is there a way to export a much lighter PDF file from Vectorworks? For instance, for a B&W printout, is there a way to delete color from the PDF?

Also, the image needed to "flatten" as it spooled. Is there a way to flatten the data in making a PDF?

Thank you.

Marc

[islandmon]

What you seem to be describing is the vector@3.4mb>eps@60mb>jpg@191kb translations possible with various flavors of PDF.

Acrobat Pro provides control of all variables and versions.

The easiest way to 'flatten' is to just set the dpi of the VP and export the image as jpg, then print the image to PDF from Preview set-up for the printer.

Flattening & mode changes of a PDF are easy with Photoshop or GraphicConverter then print the image of it back to a PDF wrapper. In VW you can also use ColorSync to pre-process images prior to PDF.

[brudgers]

A 24bit color image at 11x17 and 300dpi is about 50megs fully inflated...at 600dpi it's about 200megs.

[billtheia]

Shouldn't this be a simple vector file? If so, shouldn't dpi be irrelevant?

[Jonathan Pickup]

should this just be easier? Batch exports of PDF are great, but if they have any images in them they become impossible to email.

[brudgers]

The printer uses dpi. The only thing that prints vectors is a pen plotter.

The amount of data which has to be generated to rasterize a file is large.

[billtheia]

I understand that the printer uses dpi but the PDF file, itself, contains vector information. Generally speaking, lines are lines, fills are fills, and text is text - all independent of dpi.

Zoom in on a PDF created with VW. All line-work, fills, and text is razor sharp no matter how close you get because it's a vector file. In fact, you can open that PDF in Adobe Illustrator and edit the drawing.

The reader and printer driver change the vector information to raster information when printing but before that, isn't dpi irrelevant?

Of course if you include any attached images, they WILL be dpi-dependent but it doesn't sound like Marc is talking about that.

[brudgers]

Marc was describing the file size during print spooling.

PDF is a generic package and should be expected to print in the most generic way...ie as an inflated bitmap.

At some point the vectors have to be converted to pixels in order to print, and even at moderate resolutions it's going to be a lot of pixels.

[billtheia]

Actually, I think that Marc was looking for a way to reduce the size of the PDF file generated by VW and/or create a file that didn't require as much processing when printing.

I just did a quick test with a small (11 page) architectural project. It was set up with B&W VPs, included no images and very few patterns. It consisted of a series of floor plans and hidden line perspectives. I used batch PDF export and saved files with 150, 300, and 600 dpi resolution. File sizes were 1.4MB, 1.6MB, and 1.9MB. This is only a 14-19% increase in file size despite a theoretical doubling of resolution. I then exported as a 300dpi PDF with Export Classes as PDF Layers turned on. This resulted in a 1.9MB file. Again, a 19% increase. Lastly, I printed a single page to PDF (using OS X built-in PDF generator) and wound up with a 288K file. I used VW's PDF export to create the same page and got a 244K file so the VW PDF was actually smaller by 18%.

So, Marc, with regard to the linework, VW doesn't offer much to allow a reduction in file size. You can make sure that Export Design Layers as PDF Layers and Export Classes as PDF Layers are both turned off. If you have images (background image files, image props, etc.,) you can use the Downsample higher resolution raster images to... to reduce the dpi of those images.

By opening the file in Photoshop, you are effectively pre-processing the image. Photoshop doesn't handle vectors, it creates a raster-based file which is why it printed more quickly.

I suspect that it took you more than the 10 minutes you waited for the PDF print to create the Photoshop print so it might be more time-efficient to stick with the VW PDF. I generally email a file to my local printer for later pickup so that I don't have to spend time waiting.

Another option would be to buy Adobe Acrobat and use it's Distiller. I haven't used this in a while but when I did, it allowed quite a bit of fine tuning of PDF output.

I think that we'd all love to hear what you find works best. PDFs can be a big pain in the behind.

Good luck.

[Gerrit]

We've been discussing this same issue over at our Dutch User Forum.

You can check it out here.

The images (file info windows) you'll find scrolling down halfway were posted by me.

In VW I made an A4 document, inserted a full page rectangle, then filled it with a tiling image. This pdf export was 20,7 MB. Next, I created an A4 document in PhotoShop and did the tiling in there. Using that psd image on the VW rectangle didn't need tiling, which made a 1MB export.

Hope this helps.