[JKT]

Thankfully, I've just seen this hint at MacOSXhints.com as I was certain that one of the proposed features of Panther was going to be a way to control the size of .pdf files when generating them through the print dialogue and I was really disappointed to find that there seemingly wasn't a simple GUI way to do this... but there is!

N.B. This is for pdf files that contain images - I don't think it will work for text only files.

The hint linked above doesn't go into any details so I thought I'd write this how to:

1. Choose the document you want to print. My demo is with the current astronomy picture of the day website as viewed in OmniWeb - when saved as a .pdf this has a file size of 1.1MB:



2. To reduce that to something more sensible for e.g. e-mailing or posting on the web, choose to Print... and select the "ColourSync" option in the Print dialogue. Then select the "Reduce File Size" option from the "Quartz Filter:" pop-up menu:



3. Then Save As PDF... to get it "printed" to your desktop or wherever.



With this example APOD page, and using this option the file size was reduced from the huge size of 1.1MB to the tiny size of 40KB!!

However, the image quality isn't all that great with the default "Reduce File Size" option, so let's alter it:

4. In the ColourSync Quartz Filter pop-up, select the "Add Filters..." option (N.B. I have already added a couple of extra filters as I'm describing here, so you won't see the exact same list as in this screenshot):



5. The window below will open:



6. Notice that the default filters are locked, but you can duplicate them for editing, so highlight and duplicate the "Reduce File Size" filter, then under the "Details" tab, select the "Images" and "Compression" options from the pop-up menus in the bottom left pane. Change the settings to what suits you best (you may also want to alter the "Sampling" settings too which is in the same pop-up as the "Compression" option).



E.g. The two additional filters I've added ("Reduce File Size, HQ" - best quality JPEG compression; "Reduce File Size, HQ, Full Size" - best quality JPEG compression, no scaling or image size restrictions) produce 208KB and 768KB files from the 1.1MB original.

And there we have it. Now when you want to e-mail someone a .pdf just for viewing on a computer rather than printing, you can reduce its size to a fraction of what it used to be.

Edit: The filters can also be edited using the ColourSync Utility in the /Utilities/ folder. You don't have to go through the Print... dialogue to do this.

[tr]

sweet!!! nice write-up.

i've been going an extra step, and opening it into Acrobat, reducing it that way.

i'm gonna have to try this now...

tr

[typoon]

NICE!!!!

Automatic bump to keep this active for others

[Love Calm Quiet]

Yes, very cool!

I puzzle over the fact that Apple has no way of calling these things to our attention. Will more indispensable options surface only when "Missing Manual" finally comes out in January?

[typoon]

Originally posted by Love Calm Quiet:
Yes, very cool!

I puzzle over the fact that Apple has no way of calling these things to our attention. Will more indispensable options surface only when "Missing Manual" finally comes out in January?

It's so that we can get posts like these or for us to find and share the surprises with others.

[nagromme]

Thanks! There's definitely a big failing in Apple's documentation. A LOT of power that most people don't know exists unless they buy a non-Apple book. For all the work Apple puts into these things, you'd think they'd want people to know about them! I for one would read an exhaustive feature description for Panther, whether in print or on-screen. Not all at once though

An addition to the tip: I assume you can save a Preset in the print dialog so that you need not return to the ColorSync panel again.

[JKT]

Originally posted by nagromme:
An addition to the tip: I assume you can save a Preset in the print dialog so that you need not return to the ColorSync panel again.

Aha, good call!