Hi
I'm testing the upgrade of our system from V5 to V7.
One of our processes creates pdf copies of our invoices for an archival system.
The problem I have is that V7 produces pdfs which are 6 times larger those from V5. V5 produces PDF1.3 with a typical size of 6kb, whereas V7 produces PDF1.4 with a typical size of 37kb.
The total increase is 1Gb per week which will cause us to run out of disk space within 6 mopnths.
Any suggestions on how to reduce the size of these files?
Stuart

stuartg,

The pdf files of version 7 are indeed bigger than they were in version 5. The libraries for making pdf files have changed since version 5, and as you have noticed, the version of the generated pdf files as well. These cannot be changed, so even with optimization, the pdf files are still going to be bigger than they were in version 5.

While this may be a problem in a case where you want to archive pdf files, those changes were necessary to implement MANY of the new features for handling pdf files that were not present in v5. PDF Emulation, PDF Splitter, PDF API for scripts, WinQueue Input PDF Generation, etc... As well as better compatibility with different versions of pdf.

Here's some things you could try to optimize the pdf:
- Use the "Optimize" option in the actions that allows it, such as Create PDF. This will make sure that images are not redefined, and are instead reused, thus reducing file size.
- If you have images in your form, try maybe lowering the resolution, and don't use a higher color level than you need. If you use image backgrounds but it's just text with some boxes, taking the time to draw them in PlanetPress instead should make improvements.
- Try to not embed the fonts(there's an option for this in Image's properties). Of course, the fonts will have to be installed on your system in order to read the pdf properly.
- In those same Image properties, you have a lot of options for controlling quality. Try playing with those settings, lower the dpi, resolution, etc... (of course, you might lose some quality in the process)

These are some things that you can try. More advanced options involving scripts/external programs might exist, though obviously, those are out of the scope of this post. (and are not supported either, this would be handled by professional services)

However, even with all of this, you will probably still end up with a file that is larger than the size you had in version 5. Not much else we can do about it, to be honest. In the end, you might have to change your hard disk, and use one that has more available space if you need to archive everything.

Regards,
Raphaël Lalonde-Lefebvre

Raphael
Thanks for your reply.
Unfortunately, all the easy options are not available to us. Throwing more disk at the system is not easy - its expensive high availability stuff and its integrated into out enterprise system. Upgrading the disk is at least a year away.
The pdfs do not have images so most of the obvious pdf options which tinker with images are not relevant.
The only option which has a significant effect is to not embed all fonts. This still results in a 3-fold size increase, but that's better than 6-fold.
I'm testing to see if this is acceptable, and also disecting the pdfs to try and see what is using all that extra space.
Stuart

Stuart,
Version 7 now uses the Adobe libraries to generate PDF files (version 5 used a different library). We switched in order to be fully compatible to with Acrobat (whereas our previous libraries had...uhm... discrepancies).

The PDF files generated from the newer libraries have larger prologs than our older libraries. This doesn't make much of a difference on multi-page PDF files, but the smaller the PDF files, the more the difference shows.

Beyond what Raphaël suggested, there is unfortunately not much we can do about it.

Philippe
There is always something that we can do.
I thought I would update my post in case anyone else has a similar problem.

After close inspection of the pdfs I've found that the new libraries handle non-default encodings differently, and my form has several user-defined encodings.
I modified the form to change the data (via a user defined emulation) which then allowed me to use the default font encoding instead.
I also changed the fonts used to ensure that they are always part of the default set and are therefore never embedded in the pdf.
These options invovled quite a bit of redevelopment and retesting but resulted in significantly smaller pdfs.
Stuart

I stand corrected!

To be honest, I had thought of mentioning something about fonts, but I refrained from it because most end-users don't like the idea of having to modify their templates, especially if it impacts their look and feel. That'll teach me...

Thanks for posting your solution!