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Smaller PDF Files, please!


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Thanks @MikeW -- thought, the smaller file was from InDesign, must have made it with the Publisher beta and forgotten about it.

Here's a screenshot of my PDF settings ... as you see, I intended for all fonts to be embedded ... do you know why Publisher is turning the text into curves instead?

screenshot.jpg

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25 minutes ago, MikeW said:

The larger file was made with the beta. The smaller file has the embedded fonts and was made with the release version.

There is absolutely no way, that the smaller files originates from the release version, because:

  • The smaller file (1-2019) was created in December 2018 with an early beta (see screenshot, file date my differ becaues I copied it from my archive to the desktop and renamed it before posting here);
  • The large file (2-2019) has been created with the new customer beta just a couple of days ago.

screenshot.jpg

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I've had similar issues with HUGE PDF sizes...   I have a 130 page scanned PDF I needed to make a change too...  the starting file was 32mb...   the PDF is just images no OCR so no fonts... just 130 pages of b/w page images.    Loading the document in publisher and saving it results in a 320mb publisher file...   exporting the file back to PDF results in a 400mb PDF. 

If I do this same thing in the latest version of Page Plus the final PDF is 39mb.   Larger but not crazy larger.    

The majority of the images are at 400dpi...   I can get a smaller PDF if I use the web profile but at 72 dpi it looks like garbage.   So my solution so far is... don't use Publisher, keep using Page Plus.  

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I made a small test document both with InDesign and Publisher. A two page document with page of text and a page with two images. Exported both with PDF/X-3. Publisher created 6 MB file, InDesign 3,6 MB file. Publisher has set default compression quality to 85 %, InDesign has maximum quality. Still Publisher creates much bigger file. Both look OK in Acrobat.

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Answer found, but not a solution

I played around with the two files I uploaded above and discovered that Publisher ALWAYS (independent of the PDF settings) creates curved text when using some particular fonts ... when I switch the entire publication to Arial, the file size (including embedded fonts!) shrinks down to 0,3 MB.

So, the answer is, that Publisher apparently cannot embed all fonts (InDesign, Quark and all other DTP applications I have used throughout my career do) which, unfortunately makes it unusable for me -- it is an absolute dealbreaker not being able to provide my customers with files that come at a reasonable size for downloads / web publishing.

What I don't understand is, that the early beta versions DID embed fonts (see old file 1-2019 above), so the feature must have been removed or deactivated somewhere between the first betas and release.

Can someone from Serif explain, what happened, please?

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1 hour ago, Jens Krebs said:

Answer found, but not a solution

I played around with the two files I uploaded above and discovered that Publisher ALWAYS (independent of the PDF settings) creates curved text when using some particular fonts

@ Jens, the kind of coincidental recognition slightly confuses me, because earlier you wrote, if YOU curve the text than the PDF got a bit smaller:

On 7/6/2019 at 12:44 PM, Jens Krebs said:
On 7/6/2019 at 12:24 PM, thadeusz said:

I guess you didn't export your text as vector curves

Tried that too, in my case the PDF was 0,2 MB smaller. :D

The fact that in your trial the PDF file size did NOT increase when YOU CURVED its text would imho mean that your large PDF also has curved text. One day later you reacted positive to another hint that curved text might be a reason for the large PDF file size. As if the reason was obvious and known already, before you uploaded the two pdfs yesterday.

2 hours ago, Jens Krebs said:

What I don't understand is, that the early beta versions DID embed fonts (see old file 1-2019 above), so the feature must have been removed or deactivated somewhere between the first betas and release.

Possibly it is an issue only of specific PDF option settings (which, indeed are not finally fixed yet in AfPub) or a specific combination which makes the export fail this way by curving text unwanted.

What do you get today if you export as PDF version 1.7. - ? (as you did in December for your successfully smaller PDF .)

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

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@thomaso The whole thing is a bit confusing, you are right. I`ll try to explain best I can:

Quote

the kind of coincidental recognition slightly confuses me, because earlier you wrote, if YOU curve the text than the PDF got a bit smaller:

That's correct ... when I export with "embed fonts" the file is really big, when I export with "text as curves" the file is slightly smaller, but still way to big -- both variations have all text converted to curves though.

Quote

The fact that in your trial the PDF file size did NOT increase when YOU CURVED its text would imho mean that your large PDF also has curved text. One day later you reacted positive to another hint that curved text might be a reason for the large PDF file size. As if the reason was obvious and known already, before you uploaded the two pdfs yesterday.

That is correct too, the first large PDF contained curved text as well (which I did not realise at that time -- I selected "embed font" and didn't check, because I just assumed Publisher wuuld do just that); I did agree however that curved text would explain the file size.
When I uploaded the two files MikeW discovered that the old file had correctly embedded fonts whereas the new one had all text converted to curves.

Quote

Possibly it is an issue only of specific PDF option settings
What do you get today if you export as PDF version 1.7. - ? (as you did in December for your successfully smaller PDF .)

I get a large file. It seems to be a font specific issue ... with the original font ("Praxis LT", purchased and installed via FontBook), the file is HUGE with curved text, with a different font ("Acumin Pro", activated through Adobe Fonts) the file is BIG with curved text and with Arial (systems standard font) the file size is normal (e.g. small) with embedded text. Same settings for all three exports.

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Fonts unfortunately still ARE the issue, and especially converting them to curves increases the file size significantly for me (my projects tend to have a lot of text). The problem I am reporting here is that even if I specifically select to embed fonts, the text is converted to curves anyway.

I have resolved to printing and then saving as PDF for this project but cannot use AP for anything until this is fixed. I need high-res print files with crop marks and low res web files without, embedded fonts and reasonable file sizes for both and don't have time or patience (nor have my customers) to fiddle around with workarounds, experiments or helper tools. :60_sweat:

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Well in my case... I had a 130 page document with nothing but scanned images... so no fonts needed... I change the setting to embed 'no fonts' and it resulted in just as large a file as when fonts were included with partials.    It sounds like there is a problem with some fonts being converted to curves too but that doesn't seem to be why my PDFs are huge.

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On 7/13/2019 at 4:21 AM, Alchemist42 said:

I've had similar issues with HUGE PDF sizes...   I have a 130 page scanned PDF I needed to make a change too...  the starting file was 32mb...   the PDF is just images no OCR so no fonts... just 130 pages of b/w page images.    Loading the document in publisher and saving it results in a 320mb publisher file...   exporting the file back to PDF results in a 400mb PDF. 

Easiest explanation is that your originals are 1-bit which compresses nicely, and when you bring them to Publisher they are converted to CMYK. Known issue that Publisher does not handle 1-bit images well.

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20 hours ago, Fixx said:

I can confirm there is something weird going on in PDF export. I used 2 typefaces in text run; Interface Black and Agenda Black (both old TTFs). Agenda was fine, Interstate turned to curves on export.

I noticed such unwanted curved text on PDF export mostly with old Postscript fonts. 
( For instance some weights of Adobe Univers, PS, 2003: "Univers 45 Light" gets 'auto-curved' on export as PDF/X-4)
("Univers 55" even prevents an export unless it got curved before export)

@ Fixx, @ Jens,
can you confirm the PS type for your "Interface" or "PraxisLT Pro" font?

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

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16 hours ago, Fixx said:

Easiest explanation is that your originals are 1-bit which compresses nicely, and when you bring them to Publisher they are converted to CMYK. Known issue that Publisher does not handle 1-bit images well.

Yep... makes perfect sense... I looked for a bw/1bit color option in the export but only rgb/cmyk options...   PagePlus handles this better... and this is likely a bigger deal breaker for it seeing actual use than I thought...   I do a lot of publications with one bit line art...  and they will all balloon in publisher.    Definitely something the need to address before I can think about retiring Page Plus as my daily DTP solution.   

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On 7/20/2019 at 4:15 PM, thomaso said:

can you confirm the PS type for your "Interface" or "PraxisLT Pro" font?

Sorry, the font name is Interstate. My bad. It is TTF, though FontBook says Kind OpenType TrueType. Copyright 1994, 1999, Tobias Frere-Jones. Designed by Tobias Frere-Jones. Produced by The Font Bureau, Inc.

I have no old PS T1 fonts in my system, only OTF versions anymore. Univers LT Std 45 Light, OpenType PostScript (OTF) works fine.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Staff

So I've installed the fonts and exported the 2019 file on both Windows and Mac and the font always embedded (using the settings you have shown in the above screenshot).

This was exported from the latest beta (.437) and from release, so I'm intrigued into why it seems to be failing to embed for you, assuming the font I've installed is the same as yours.

Do you have any other font applications on your computer? I used Fontbook like yourself to install the fonts

Serif Europe Ltd. - www.serif.com

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Hi Jon,

thanks for testing.

I use a font manager called "RightFont" (supports auto-activation for Affinity Photo and Designer, so the font might have been activated rather than installed from a different project) -- that's a good hint, I'll try installing the fonts 'normally' and will let you know what happens.

Update: You were on the right track Jon, the problem was / is my font manager:
When I install the fonts manually using FontBook, the export works like a charm and all fonts are embedded as they are supposed to be. When I activate the very same fonts using "Right Font"  (version 5.5, according to www.rightfontapp.com compatible with the whole Affinity Suite), the fonts are converted to curves on export.

 

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