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Sharky K. · Oct 24, 2003, 02:37 PM

The website from Apple stated that an option for compressed PDF would be available in 10.3. I asked some people who already have 10.3 now but they can not find this option. I really was looking forward for this option.

Do you know where to find this or know this is not a 10.3 feature? If you know where it is, I would really like to see a screenshot.

Geobunny · Oct 24, 2003, 05:49 PM

I would REALLY like to know that too. I had to print out about 200 records from FileMaker, to individual PDFs the other day. I printed direct to PDF and the files were coming out around 50k each, I then printed them to a postscript file (still filemaker in OS X) and ran them through Distiller in OS 9. The files came out at around 9 or 10k each!

I'm intrigued to know what OS X or Quartz is doing to make the files so much larger. The final destination for these files is the net, so I don't want them to be any bigger than is absolutely necessary. Some people actually still have dial-up connections!

kristian · Oct 24, 2003, 08:25 PM

It's actually located as a Quartz Filter (Reduce File Size) option under Colorsync in the Print dialogue box.

However, I'm not too impressed with the reducation. Tried it printing a 30-odd page Word document to PDF. Uncompressed size was 560kb while the compressed size was 552kb...

Tom C · Oct 25, 2003, 12:13 AM

Did the 30 page Word document have any pictures in it?

If the built-in compression in Panther works anything like some of the third-party PDF compression shareware programs for Jaguar, the savings is purely in the way images are stored...PDF format can handle compressed images, but OS X didn't compress the images in PDFs in Jaguar and earlier. It's like the difference between a TIFF file and a JPEG file, only within the PDF. You won't see much savings on an all-text document.

krove · Oct 25, 2003, 12:31 AM

Not exactly the best interface or intuitive location for such compression settings, IMHO.

That application that it takes you to is not very Apple-friendly either. What is going on with Apple's HIG?!? The inconsistencies and complicated nature of some of these new interfaces is most perplexing.

RufusRyker · Oct 25, 2003, 12:40 AM

Is it possible Apple doesn't want to piss off Adobe, so that they keep developing and improving Acrobat and Distiller? Therefore, Apple "hides" the compression and even limits its functionality. Or am I just being paranoid?

krove · Oct 25, 2003, 12:43 AM

Paranoid. If Adobe were somehow going to get litigious over this, it doesn't matter where Apple "hides" it because it is still there.

Apple just developed this far too quickly without really thinking about the best, most intuitive manner in which it should have been implemented.

Sharky K. · Oct 25, 2003, 02:08 AM

So images are also converted to jpeg and you can say what dpi you want?

Text compression is an option btw in other pdf compressors and Apple doesn't use that in 10.2 and you won't win a lot of space as said before but better than no compression of course.

Sharky K. · Oct 25, 2003, 10:27 AM

nobody?

Sharky K. · Oct 25, 2003, 03:07 PM

I found settings with the Colorsync filters to change image size but that is not dpi based and this filter only makes pdf files bigger.

Fink-Nottle · Oct 25, 2003, 04:04 PM

Try this... it's reasonable and has lots of options:

http://www.stone.com/PStill/PStill.html

Sharky K. · Oct 25, 2003, 05:05 PM

I really hoped Apple would implement it. They said they would but didn't

Also the implementation of PStill in the PDF Workflow isn't as nice as I would like to see it. But I am going to buy it, best option available now.