PDF sizing (when there's lots of images)

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I know this is probably the wrong section to post this forum thread, but I think ultimately this comes down to how to save a graphic at the lowest possible sizing.

I’m needing to put together some PDFs each contain a lot of images, however when I create the PDF I’m left with an extremely large file size, which ultimately is resulting in an extremely long download time. I’ve downloaded recipe magazines and other PDFs that contain lots of images, including full-page advertisements resulting in what seems to be at least an 80% image content, yet the end size is considerably small considering the large amount of images across a large amount of pages.

What I’m doing at the moment is I’m saving an image as a web format, JPEG, lowest format possible without losing too much quality. I’m also resizing the image and stretching it out for when it’s imported into the word document, for instance I will resize to 800px width if the paper size has 1200px width (that’s not accurate by the way I’m just trying to provide an example of how I’m trying to get the file size as small as possible).

As mentioned above quickly, I’m ultimately saving these PDFs from within Word, I’m on a Mac so I’m using the PDF plug-in to do this.

Can anyone give me suggestions on how I can significantly lower my overall size of the PDFs which I’m needing to place on a website, considering the above which I’m already doing is there anything else that I’m missing that can help reduce the file size? I see so many people with such high graphic PDFs with a much lower file size then some of my PDFs that have only a few graphics in it!

One of my PDFs will need be around 70 pages, and I would really like to use a background image created in Photoshop for the majority of the pages. However 70 pages with a full-size graphic image as well as text is going to be insanely massive. But as mentioned earlier I’ve downloaded recipe magazines that are 70-80 pages with heaps of images that are at reasonable file size.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, any feedback is greatly appreciated!

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Two things I would consider doing here:

  1. possibly use the Save for Web feature in Photoshop to reduce the file sizes (but that may affect printing badly, so I’d check print quality forst if that is important).

  2. I use Adobe Acrobat to create PDFs, and there are options for saving the pdf, such as Print quality, Highest file size, Web friendly etc. (I don’t remember the exact terms.) For something that is mainly for viewing on the web, I use the optimize for web setting, as it vastly reduces the file size, and prints pretty well in my experience—especially text.

If you are just saving to PDF from Word, I’m not sure that you have those options. I normally do such layouts in InDesign.

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Great! Thanks for the reply, I have been using the save for Web feature in Photoshop, so I’m glad at least that part of what I’m doing is correct.

I haven’t created a PDF before using Adobe Acrobat, I just gave it a go and I kept receiving an error message when trying to create a PDF: “Unfortunately Acrobat.com could not contact the server to complete your action.”.

What are the best files to upload within Adobe Acrobat? Should they be images or a one-page Word file? You mentioned to use Indesign, do you potentially have 20 Indesign files that you put together to create a 20 page PDF document in Adobe Acrobat?

Another thing I was wondering, with my PDF, in Photoshop I have a background and then text over the top, is there a way I can create the PDF from the Photoshop file so that when it’s in a PDF the text can be highlighted, copied, etc.? This would ultimately be so much easier then pasting the background image into word and then formatting some text on top of that, Microsoft Word gets extremely glitchy when a lot of images are within the document.

Any tips on how to get Adobe Acrobat working and how to potentially use a PSD file to create the PDF would be awesome!

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If you have Acrobat, perhaps don’t do that at first, because the Web option of Acrobat probably compresses everything anyway, and may do a better job. I’ve not used Save for Web with PDF images before.

I haven’t created a PDF before using Adobe Acrobat, I just gave it a go and I kept receiving an error message when trying to create a PDF: “Unfortunately Acrobat.com could not contact the server to complete your action.”.

Hmm, from any Adobe program you should be able to go to create a PDF. In Ps, try Save As > FormatL Photoshop PDF > Save, and then choose Smallest File Size from the Adobe PDF Preset at the top of the Save PDF box. Then click Save PDF. I haven’t tried it before, but it’s worth a try.

You mentioned to use Indesign, do you potentially have 20 Indesign files that you put together to create a 20 page PDF document in Adobe Acrobat?

InDesign is a layout program, so you do a multi-page document and then save as a PDF. That’s how I do it, anyhow.

is there a way I can create the PDF from the Photoshop file so that when it’s in a PDF the text can be highlighted, copied, etc.?

See if what I said above works. It should do.

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I am really not familiar with InDesign, but I opened it up to give it a go. Sorry for being such a newb but I couldn’t figure out how to bring across my PSD file into InDesign while also bringing across all of the layers, I Google searched this but couldn’t get an answer.

I don’t feel comfortable in designing everything in InDesign as I’m much more comfortable with Photoshop, but if there’s an easy way to bring across a PSD file into InDesign then it shouldn’t be a problem.

When I save the Photoshop file has PSD and I go to copy paste text from within it, the text appears as ‘␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣’. I was hoping that it would be possible to save PSD files as a PDF individually, then simply combine all of the PDF documents to create one large PDF document, with of course each individual one being of low file size. I was hoping maybe if it was easy to bring across a PSD file into InDesign I could do a similar thing to make it easy on me because I’m unfamiliar with InDesign, but I’m not sure if this is possible while also keeping file size low and quality high.

But upon saving one PSD file as a PDF, the file size was 5.3MB. I have a 20 page full-color graphical PDF that I downloaded from a website, the file size is 4.7MB. Saving as ‘smallest file size’ brings it down to around 360KB, but outside of text, the graphics are really low quality.

Any additional feedback is appreciated, I know that it’s possible to have a high graphic PDF at a low file size, but right now it’s seeming extremely complex when it probably shouldn’t be.

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I don’t know much about this, but when saving to PDF, there are quite a few options. For example, when you choose “smallest file size”, if you click Compression, there’s a default setting that downsamples images over 450 KB to 300 KB. You could reset that to whatever you like (tinker until you get acceptable quality) or disable downsampling altogether. Each setting (like smallest file size) just has pre-determined settings, but you can tinker with them and then save those settings for later.

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Even if I can get the file size down with the settings. I still have the concern with the text not being text in the PDF, ultimately disallowing people from being able to copy and paste sections of the PDF, which I want to be something that can be done. I presume this is a PSD -> PDF problem, as I selected for no security to be enabled when converting to PDF.

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No, I suspect not. The smallest file size setting renders all fonts as an image to save on file size. So perhaps try a higher quality setting to save as, and then adjust the compression settings to get the file size down.

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This is happening across all of the settings I have tried so far - from the smallest file size, to the highest, and in-between.

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Hmm, yeah, saving Ps as a PDF doesn’t have all the font options you have with InDesign.

Still, I just tried a test Ps file with text in it, saves as PDF, and the text is still editable. :confused:

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hmm… That’s annoying, purely because it seems that now it’s a problem arising from my end only which makes it extremely difficult to try and resolve. I’m not using any random fonts, I’m using Calibri and Arial and i’m finding the same thing to occur.

Is it possible to open up the PSD file with all the layers in InDesign? That way I can try and save the file as a PDF from within InDesign and see if I have the same problems.

Alternatively, do you think it would be possible for me to outsource this kind of work once I have all of the PSD files, ultimately if you’re able to save a PSD as a PDF no problem then maybe it could be an easy solution for me to just outsource it all, but preferably, as it seems InDesign is the program to really use for this kind of work and to get the best results, would it be possible to outsource for the PSD files to be created into an InDesign file that can be easily converted to a lower file sized PDF?

I wouldn’t mind trying to figure this out myself as this stuff only comes in handy anyway.

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I do think it’s worth the trouble to set this up in InDesign. You can create a template with a bg image in it that then appears on each page, rather than paste in an image on every page. It’s not all that different from using Word, really. I actually find it easier than Word. From memory, you can import a Word doc into InDesign. It’s not the ideal, but it does work. Then you can place your images where you want them. If you have the Word docs already, it shouldn’t be too big a job to set them up in InDesign.

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Well actually, placing the Word document into InDesign wouldn’t work, simply because I would have needed to save the image in Photoshop and this seems to be where the large file size is ultimately coming from. Really, I need to figure out how to save a PSD into an editable PDF while also keeping the file size down, or figuring out how to open up a PSD into InDesign and then saving as an editable PDF.

I would have thought that as both programs are Adobe that this would be possible. But it seems like really my only option is to design everything from scratch in InDesign?

The reason I would really like to be able to save directly the PDF from either Photoshop or InDesign is because the alternative is to save everything BUT the text, ultimately placing a background image into Word, then having an extremely fiddly process of trying to overlap the image with a text area, which over a large document, with lots of images, is going to be an extremely painful process. So right now I’m not looking at using Word because it doesn’t seem to be able to provide me with an option that will allow me to save a high graphic PDF in a low file size.

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Sorry to bump this thread up, I am putting together around 70 pages of a PDF which will ultimately be full-color pages with text. Each page is being designed in Photoshop and saved as a PSD and I’m finding it hard to save from Photoshop into a PDF while keeping file size low and quality high, along with the ability to copy and paste text from within (as mentioned in a previous post above).

I’m wondering what the correct wording, as well as the correct type of outsourcing qualifications that I will need if I am to find someone who can use each of the 70 PSD files that I’ve put together, and ultimately redesign this into Indesign where I can save the PDF at low file size while keeping quality and also being able to copy and paste text.

I’m not sure how much this will cost me, but as I don’t have time to figure out Indesign myself, I think designing the PSD’s and then having someone who is comfortable with Indesign place it into a project and save as a PDF would be the best option for me right now.

Any advice on how to go about outsourcing this, while ensuring to hire someone who has the correct skills would be greatly appreciated.

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Have you actually tried InDesign, though? I find it pretty easy to use, not unlike Word. It’s easy to create a document at the dimensions you need, choose a number of pages (though you can add them later anyhow), and create layers as in Photoshop. It’s worth a try if you haven’t explored it yet.

Otherwise, you could try the SitePoint Market, and just require people to show their qualifications before accepting their services.

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I have given it a go, but I only really know the basics of Photoshop and I’m not extremely fluent with Photoshop, so learning indesign isn’t really an easy progression. In addition, I wasn’t able to figure out how to save a PDF in low file size within indesign, and I was having some problems with that, which is only really the start of things that I probably would end up needing to Google, which would end up being a time-consuming process for me.

I’m not saying I don’t want to learn indesign, but right now is not a good time, I’d really prefer to outsource this work from my designs within Photoshop to make this whole process a lot easier.

I appreciate the response, hopefully I can find someone who is able to do this in a professional manner, and can save the PDF in good quality and at a low file size and not just say that they can!

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If you don’t want to go through something like the Marketplace, one option would be to look up graphic designers in your local area, most of whom seem to use InDesign these days.

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Perhaps your text is getting rasterized in Photoshop, this will lead to the text being an image in the PDF rather than text and as such will have issues with the copy and paste. You didn’t mention what version of the Creative Suite you are using (I assume the suite as you have several of the programs at your disposal).

In the newer versions of Photoshop you can save as a Photoshop PDF which retains all of the layers. I just quickly whipped up a type and graphics PSD file, saved it as a Photoshop PDF and the text was able to be copy and pasted into Word. I used the PDF optimizer in Acrobat to shave 400K off of the file (from 1.02 MB to about 640K).

I agree with the other poster InDesign would be great to learn. To bring images into it you have to first draw out an image frame where you want it to be, then use the Place command to insert the image file into the frame. There are buttons then that deal with selecting the aspect ratio of your image such as fit image to frame, fit frame to image, etc.

Ultimately what you would be doing with InDesign is like what you are doing with Photoshop. Create your text where you want it, then place your images in frames where you want them, on different layers. You have a far greater range of tools to create printed works such as books with InDesign, I will admit there is a learning curve and I had to learn that many of the terms come from the printing world and not all of them are modern! Like “Placing an image” rather than paste like you may be used to!

One final thing you may do to make the text copy and paste capable is to run the Optical Character Recognition feature in Acrobat (OCR), I am using Acrobat 10 now and there is a “Recognize Text” option that I ran on a PDF of a scanned contract yesterday, the entire PDF was just JPG images of each page. I have to say it created copy and paste ready text without a single error that I put into a Word document for editing.

Hope all that was helpful in some way!

A good tutorial DVD or online like Lynda.com or Total Training (totaltraining.com) will get you going if you are a visual learner and there are a plethora of good books if you would rather go that way (The DVD route got me up to speed fast as you are creating actual documents and you can see all the mouse movements and get narration at the same time). As an aside if you are using an older version of the suite then Total Training has good prices on thier DVDs for the older versions and I find for the basics those apply to the new versions as well, but new features and menu changes may slow you up a bit if you are using a newer version than the DVD.

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Thanks for such helpful advice, I actually just downloaded indesign since starting this forum thread, so I only have the demo version of the latest release of indesign.

I appreciate your reference to educational material roddog63, I do feel that if I knew this myself the process would be a lot easier than outsourcing it, but taking the time to figure out the exact features that I’m needing is something I’m unable to put a time frame on and if it’s going to be a long time frame, then it’s possibly easier to just outsource it at this time for this particular project.

Is there a particular training program you recommend that covers the whole saving as a PDF in low file size when the document is containing lots of images and full color pages? I know there is a lot of features in indesign and would rather know how to do what I’m needing to do from the start!

Also, can I ask if it is actually possible to transfer a layered PSD directly into indesign, keeping all of the layers in place, just transferring it over into in design? I have tried this, but it transfers just as one big image and does not maintain the layers, ultimately this is not good for a PDF where I would like text to be available for selecting, copy pasting, etc. I have also googled this and it seems it is actually possible, however even though the instructions seem extremely simple, every time I go to import my PSD file into indesign ensuring all of the layers are also brought across, it never works. I tried this so many times, and on every occasion I have found information on how to import a PSD file into Indesign, keeping all of the layers intact, it hasn’t worked and all I am left with is one large image.

I’m also having troubles with Adobe reader. When I select file - create Adobe PDF using Acrobat.com, to hopefully be able to get the file size down more as suggested in a response above, I receive the following error message, I raised this earlier in this thread and the response was that I didn’t need to be on any Internet connection, however with a contacting error it seems that either I don’t have the correct version? Plug-in? Or something else? I attached a screenshot of this error message to hopefully help clarify.

I appreciate all the help I’ve been receiving on this forum thread, thanks for any additional feedback and assistance to help me out.

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Is this with InDesign? To create a PDF from InDesign, use File > Export.