Discrepancy in the file size of PDF output

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Hi,

I have generated a PDF of 187 pages word document on my system and the file size turned out was 857 KB, but then later on I realized that I need to add 2 more pages in the same document, so after adding the same, when I re-generated the PDF, the size became 2.57 MB.

I am not able to understand the reason behind such a huge difference in the file size after I generated PDF for the second time.
Just sharing the details of the content that I added, to give a clearer picture, the two new pages that I have added contains only text and no images or tables, also the second time when i generated the system I generated it on a difference machine. Just wondering if machine configuration can also add to the file size

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It would help if you tell us what version(s) or Word you have on these PCs, and what PDF creation software you are using on each of them.

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There is a large number of configurable settings in creating PDFs. Some of the optional factors which could cause big differences in file size are:

[*]The quality (resolution and colour depth) of the bitmap graphics in the PDF
[*]The presence of bookmarks and hyperlinks
[*]The presence of structure tags for readability
[*]The inclusion of fonts
[*]The conversion of fonts to bitmap

If you created the two PDFs on different machines then both the software used to create the PDF and the settings within that software could be very different.

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There is a large number of configurable settings in creating PDFs. Some of the optional factors which could cause big differences in file size are:

[*]The quality (resolution and colour depth) of the bitmap graphics in the PDF
[*]The presence of bookmarks and hyperlinks
[*]The presence of structure tags for readability
[*]The inclusion of fonts
[*]The conversion of fonts to bitmap

If you created the two PDFs on different machines then both the software used to create the PDF and the settings within that software could be very different.

Thanks, Andrew and StuartR for your reply.

I have MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional on both the systems.
Regarding the settings, I am using the detault ones, not sure which settings I can opt out, but my major need is to have bookmarks and hyperlinks in the PDF output.

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I have MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional on both the systems.

I assume that you are using the PDFMaker Macro on both PCs, and not just printing to the Adobe Acrobat printer.

I suggest that you carefully check all of the PDFMaker settings, as Andrew said, their are lots of these and some of them will have a dramatic effect on file sizes.

Just to make sure that this really is a difference in the Acrobat settings, can you try to create your PDF file on the same PC as you created the original one, as there could be some other difference in the Word document that you haven’t noticed.

Also make sure that both PCs have all of the fonts that the document uses, as I think the default PDFMaker setup will automatically embed some fonts.

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Hi gurpreet,
You can print the last 2 pages only to PDF and combine it to the first PDF.
Armstrong

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Hi gurpreet,
You can print the last 2 pages only to PDF and combine it to the first PDF.
Armstrong

Thanks, Armstrong.
By individually printing and then combining will not update my TOC and will also not create the bookmarks for the sections existing in these two pages. Also, this is not a one time problem that I have faced, i have often faced such issues, that’s why wanted to understand the reason behind it.

As StuartR mentioned about the PDF settings, I will troubleshoot on this, may this will resolve the issue
Thanks, StuartR once again…

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Hi gurpreet,
Thanks for your reply. Sorry for not being aware of your TOC need in advance. One possibility for drastic increase of the file size is caused by disabling the Acrobat’s automatic image downsampling feature.
1. When printing a document, click Property on the right.
2. In the Adobe PDF Document Properties dialog box, click the 3rd tab–Adobe PDF Settings.
3. The Default Settings is normally set to Standard. Click Edit.
4. In the Standard – Adobe PDF Settings, on the left column, click Images.
Now you modify the downsampling settings at will (see the screenshot below).
Armstrong

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Hi gurpreet,
Thanks for your reply. Sorry for not being aware of your TOC need in advance. One possibility for drastic increase of the file size is caused by disabling the Acrobat’s automatic image downsampling feature.
1. When printing a document, click Property on the right.
2. In the Adobe PDF Document Properties dialog box, click the 3rd tab–Adobe PDF Settings.
3. The Default Settings is normally set to Standard. Click Edit.
4. In the Standard – Adobe PDF Settings, on the left column, click Images.
Now you modify the downsampling settings at will (see the screenshot below).
Armstrong

Hi Armstrong,

Please accept my heartiest thanks for this great trick . I just tried it, and it’s working perfectly fine. Infact, I have often faced a problem where because of large number of images, the document eventually crash at the end. But this has actually generated the PDF of one such document, which was not getting PDFied and after making the setting shared by you, it simply worked !!

Once agains a BIG thanks for sharing your knowledge and helping me out.

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Hi Gurpreet,

Thanks for your kind words. It was rather fortuitous that I had encountered a similar issue previously. I appreciate your generous kindness to share your joy with us.

Armstrong

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