[pfapfap]

Hopefully someone here can help me out with this ancient problem.

I'm using Illustrator 9 on an old iMac, running OS9. I need to convert some sheets to PDF and am getting strange results. The Illustrator files are small (100k or so), all images associated with them are small (add up to under 200k), and there's not much text. Yet when I "save as" PDF, they're are all well over 1MB for each page. If I use the PDF print driver I have (Acrobat 3), my test file was even larger, and that was with no embedded fonts. I never used to worry about it as I was just printing, but these days people want things emailed, so this needs to be resolved. Any ideas? Thanks bunches for anyone who can help.

[headbirth]

Try saving as eps or print it to a ps and use Distiller to create the pdf. You might only have the graphics linked to the illustrator file instead of embeddded which would account for size variances. You may also be including the Colorsync profile information or illustrator editing info in the pdf which can add bulk. You might be creating a print ready (300dpi) when all you need is a screen (72dpi) pdf.

[pfapfap]

I will try that, thanks! (can't do it right now, but will this evening) Out of curiousity, why would the method of placing images matter? They are linked, you are correct. I'll play around with export resolutions, too, but I do need reasonable print quality.