Publisher: File Size is HUGE

[mimimia]

I've created a document with 500 pages that only contain some text (aprox. 10 sentences on every page) and some simple forms that I created inside the Publisher. The seize of the document is 630MB !! There are NO graphics, NO links whatsoever in the document. When exporting the document to PDF, the seize is nearly the same.

The dpi is only 72 - doesn't make any sense? I'm using the V2 on my MacBook Pro with Sonoma.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks!

 

[Pšenda]

Example? (one page with some text and "some simple form" + export settings).

[Hangman]

Hi @mimimia and welcome to the forums,

If you save your file using a different name, close it, re-open it, and re-export it, are you seeing the same file sizes? If so, try rebooting your Mac and see if the same file sizes are still shown...

Based on your description I created a 500-page, A4 Publisher document and it's 135KB, exported it is 1.3MB so @Pšenda suggests I think we would likely need to see either the complete Publisher file or at least a few typical pages that include both a standard text page and pages including a form...

[Pšenda]

3 minutes ago, Hangman said:

likely need to see either the complete Publisher file

The 630 MB put me off this requirement a bit 🙂

[Hangman]

7 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

The 630 MB put me off this requirement a bit 🙂

I only suggested that to rule out something on a particular page that could be causing an issue as 630 MB seems somewhat excessive based on the description...

[Old Bruce]

2 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I only suggested that to rule out something on a particular page that could be causing an issue as 630 MB seems somewhat excessive based on the description...

 

30 minutes ago, mimimia said:

some simple forms

Some "simple forms" could well be the problem.

[MikeTO]

Also please ensure that you have not selected File > Save History with Document. Using this command will cause your file sizes to increase dramatically.

[mimimia]

Thank you all for your ideas!

Attached you find a small version of the document - 18 pages and 19 MB. I'm new to Publisher - maybe I underestimated the size of the forms? I also attached my export settings, but they are in German, sorry about that.

 

3_4.afpub

 

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, mimimia said:

Attached you find a small version of the document - 18 pages and 19 MB.

Could you also upload the exported PDF (10 MB). I can't open V2 but I am curious what elements do cause that size in particular if no images are used and nothing gets rasterized (as your export dialog says).

For your .afpub size you could try this: Create a new document of same page size and colour & choose menu Document > Add Pages From File to import the entire affected afpub & Save As.

[R C-R]

Just guessing but consider the numbers in circles at the top left of pages beginning on page 5. Each of them includes a group with a huge number of curves in it (over 1200 for the first one!!!) so that is probably responsible for much of the excess size.

[Pšenda]

40 minutes ago, R C-R said:

huge number of curves

... yes, this "simple form" (page 2) contain cca 80000 curves,

with very complex shape.

 

Document size after delete page 2:

Edited January 11, 2024 by Pšenda

[thomaso]

46 minutes ago, R C-R said:

huge number of curves

@mimimia, this means you can reduce the .afpub and the exported .PDF file sizes massively by rasterizing those Group layers that contain the vectorized illustrations.

When doing this you might consider to increase the document resolution first, e.g. to 300 dpi, to maintain the image quality in a resolution which would work for print, too. Since the elements have quite small dimensions a higher resolution wouldn't result in a remarkable larger file size towards your current 72 dpi but in a sharper contour.

If wanted you then could convert the rasterized illustrations to layers of type "Image" which enables you to place the items linked resources. Finally you could replace each of them with instances of just a few linked image files. For colour variations you don't necessarily need to have the image files in different colours but could alternatively apply an adjustment layer (e.g. HSL, Recolour) to achieve a wanted colour for each element.

[Pšenda]

7 hours ago, thomaso said:

Since the elements have quite small dimensions

I would be quite interested in who and for what purpose created this extremely complex, yet on the display and after printing invisible (indiscernible to the eyes) structure. The only possibility is that it is coded secret information - for example plans for the production of a superluminal rocket 🙂

I think that visually the same impression (even with better readability of the digits) would be made by a simple colored circle with a spherical gradient.

Edited January 11, 2024 by Pšenda

[thomaso]

5 hours ago, Pšenda said:

a spherical gradient

While I still see the textured element as more artistic/creative than a technical gradient even in the small size, I rather wonder for what goal the (apparently) scanned watercolour illustration got vectorized at all: Even if printed in 3x3 metres for a school wall for instance, an upscaled, resampled raster image would appear more 'natural' (closer to watercolour) than the vectorized data with its hard-edged sub-shapes, visible already in the 10-15 cm size of @Pšenda's screenshot. (… while in an upscaled pixel image any hidden message could still get placed in a tiny font size;)

 

[mimimia]

Thank you so much for all your help! I'm gonna try and find out, if one of the ideas will make a difference. I downloaded the illustration on freepik and it came like this - I dont' know if there's a hidden message

The document would definitely also work with a colored circle, I just like the illustration better. But if I can't manage downsizing the document, I will probably try it.

[Pšenda]

1 hour ago, mimimia said:

I just like the illustration better

Just consider the fact that due to its use there is a significant deterioration in the readability of the numbers indicated on it - the number in certain places merges with the bright parts of the illustration.

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, mimimia said:

I downloaded the illustration on freepik and it came like this

If you would have just placed it as 'Image' or 'Document' resource without opening it (= accessing it as a 'Group' layer this way) you could now replace the vectorized version with a pixel version by just 1 click for all instances in this .afpub.