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Smaller PDF Files, please!


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I really like the PDF export and am fine with the speed and everything, but the file sizes are SO MUCH BIGGER than from the competition, that it starts hindering my workflow.

I don't mind the size of a high-res print file, but there should definitely be a setting equal to other applications "smallest file size" -- many of my customers want to have their publications online for download on their website and large files are just really inconvenient. I have tried setting the image resolution and JPG quality down, subsetted fonts and restricted the Acrobat version to 8 (my normal tricks to save a couple bytes), but the files are still monstrous compared to ,other software'.

What exactly is blowing up the file size? Maybe I'm just missing a setting?

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I had the same issue with PagePlus so I would imagine it's the PDF library Serif use.

There are online PDF compressing tools but I purchased NX Powerlite Desktop which appears to reduce files to roughly 20% which works for web downloads and in many cases works for sending to printer with acceptable reduction in quality but YMMV of course.

Windows 10 Home - 8Gb / Windows 10  Pro - 96Gb

Affinity Publisher 1.7.3.481 - Affinity Photo 1.7.3.481 - Affinity Designer 1.7.3.481

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Have you tried using the web profile and adjusting it to suit your needs under more settings. This brought a file I put on the web as well as print from 14mb down to less than 1 mb and you can set it until you get optimum results. I also used to do this in PagePlusx9

 

Annotation 2019-07-06 093438.png

 

Alan Pickup

Windows 11 Home all Affinity suite of Apps PC and Gigabyte Laptop 16gb Ram and Nvidia GTX1660 Super on each.

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Thanks Ash, thanks Alan,

I have played around with the settings (reduced the JPG quality down to 70, set the downsample boundary to everything above 72dpi and tried to export with and without layers), but this particular file I am experimenting with is always at least 13 MB (the print file is 140, but that doesn't matter).

When i did exactly the same publication (we are talking about the same amount of text, same fonts, same amount of images, same page count, same layout) in InDesign (and a test in Quark XPress before I decided to wait for Publisher) during the last couple of years the print files were about 15 MB and the web files somewhere around 1 MB with similar export settings as in Publisher.

I'm going to try some of the PDF reducing apps, but my point stays that Publishers PDF files are significantly larger than Adobes and the ones form Quark XPress and with the images being of the same size and quality (the 15MB and 140MB print files have exactly the same resolution and print settins), the issue has to lie somewhere else.

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Have you had a look at advanced features, like layers, maybe font embedding? It can be also worth it to change color space to RGB on export settings when exporting for web.
I also had the feeling of having to big PDFs, but it works for me at the moment. But Affinity file sizes (for project files) are incredible and far to big too!

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Hi Thadeusz,

yes, I have checked, changed and tested all settings you mention.

I have now trialled NX Powerlite online, SmallPDF (see above), Bluebeam Revu, PDF Expert and PDF Squeezer with my test file -- all programs manage to decrease my file size only about 1-3 percent (yes, percent, not megabyte) by working on the images, so the massive size must come from text and vector elements.

Regarding project file size, the developers said somewhere here on the forums, that the file format is optimised for speed, not for size, and I personally like it and don't mind the size, because Publisher is flippin' fast.

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Hm, sorry, no idea for making PDFs smaller. I guess you didn't export your text as vector curves which would be a reason for big PDFs.
With project files I'm mostly fine with it as well, but when having several versions or when sharing with iPad than it's just to easy to have a 400MB file in the way... 

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Maybe one last idea from me. There was a discussion in forums about a difference, when things get rasterized in Publisher or in Indesign. Are your text/graphic elements still vector based in your PDF? If not, there might be something like a layer effect, which forces rasterization on export.

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Hi, did you try this settings (attachment) making 72 dpi? Makes a quarter of normal settings with 1.7. (pics only: 20 MB; 1.7: 100 MB; 300 dpi, 1.7: 300 MB and more in bilinear). Reg., lars

pdfsmall.jpeg

all Aff 2.2: Capture One+ 23 pro; MacBook Pro, OSX 10.15.7,  Fuji X-Pro2 

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6 hours ago, ashf said:

It can be controlled by export setting like AlanPickup said.

But if you want smaller than that, you could compress PDF with SmallPDF.
https://smallpdf.com/compress-pdf

Thanks! I bookmarked that

Affinity Designer 2.2.2075 & beta 2.3.1.2212 Affinity Photo 2.2.2075  beta 2.3.1.2212Affinity Publisher  2.2.2075 & beta 2.3.1.2212

Windows 11 Pro Version    22H2
OS build    22621.1928
Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700 CPU @ 2.90GHz   2.90 GHz
Installed RAM    16.0 GB (15.7 GB usable)
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

yoda.png

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8 hours ago, Jens Krebs said:

I have now trialled NX Powerlite online, SmallPDF (see above), Bluebeam Revu, PDF Expert and PDF Squeezer with my test file -- all programs manage to decrease my file size only about 1-3 percent (yes, percent, not megabyte) by working on the images, so the massive size must come from text and vector elements.

That sounds strange...
What kind of document is it?
Does it have complected vector artworks a lot?

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Here's the file as a normal attachment ... this is just to give you an idea what the brochure looks like.

As said, I don't see anything that would explaing the size blowing up from this to 13MB in the Publisher version (cannot share that yet, will update after it's released). If any the Publisher version should be smaller, because it doesn't contain the star spangled sky register on the left and right outer border on every page.

Mit_uns_durch_Köln_und_in_die_Region.pdf

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OK, not sure if someone is still reading this, but I made a little experiment:

I created a publication in InDesign and exported it with my ,usual' print settings (crop marks, 300dpi, CMYK colour profile ...). The file size of this export is 75MB.

Next I opened this PDF file in Affinity Publisher and exported it wit the same settings – resulting in a PDF of 408(!) MB.
Considering that there was only 75MB of source material and all fonts are installed on my computer, this is quite strange.

Happy to supply both files (original InDesign PDF and the new one) to Serif, if they are willing to investigate. :)

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Jens, I noticed occasionally  3 unexpected reasons for enormous PDF file size:

1. Document color set to 16 bit –> resulted in uncompressed images

2. Font issues –> resulted in doubled text frames in PDF: in the foreground as text in the background copy as curved.

3. .afpubs not created in AfPub but from imported / opened PDFs.

Worth to look at possibly.

If you like, upload a test .afpub with pieces of you affected .afpub. I'd like to look at it. Also a few pages of the huge PDF would be interesting to look at.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Hi everyone,

I have managed to find another two files for comparison, one PDF from InDesign (1-2019) and another almost identical one created from Publisher (2-2019) -- the Publisher one is more than 10x as big, even though the title image is smaller and the barcodes and small logos from 1-2019 are not included.

I am happy to share the Publisher file with someone for analysis (preferrably a Serif employee), but don't feel comfortable putting it in here for everyone to download. Please contact me if you can help and want to take a look at the Publisher file.

In addition, I have downloaded a trial of "Callas PDF Toolbox" to see if I can find something myself, I'll keep this thread updated.

2-2019.pdf

1-2019.pdf

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The pdfs are both from APub.

One issue is going to be one pdf has all 8,000 text characters turned to curves--there is no live text as the other file has. The smaller one is the smaller pdf, of course.

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