Reducing PDF File Size--Considerably

[Dianna_...@adobeforums.com]

I'm using Acrobat 6.1, Office 2000 and an HP Scanjet 8250. Scanned files are incredibly huge. I've used the Reduce File option with little results. How do I compress my files without using ZIP and continue to maintain the .pdf extension? Do I need a third-party program?

[Doria...@adobeforums.com]

You could try printing to the Adobe PDf printer to create another PDF from your PDF.

You could also try scanning to TIF and converting that to PDF.

[Aandi_...@adobeforums.com]

What resolution are you scanning at? And are you scanning as full
colour, greyscale or black and white?

Aandi Inston

[Kevin_...@adobeforums.com]

What is the size of files and what kind of resolution are they scan at?

Here is a way to reduce file size.
Goto Advance/PDF Optimzer and see what you can clean up, by delting unseen layers, lowering resolution, different types of compression, etc. this usually get me great results.

Kevin Brenner

[Dianna_...@adobeforums.com]

Dear Aandi and Kevin,

I apologize for the delay in answering your questions to my problem. This is my first time and just getting the hang of it.

Anyway, in talking with another user in the accounting field, I should not scan documents below 300 dpi. I use black and white resolution (1 bit).

Since these are tax files, and not graphics, I don't think that I can mess with the files physically, other than compressing them.

Part of my problem, I think, is that I need to be able to scan in .ps or .eps and then use Acrobat Distiller to compress to a .pdf. But, I don't know how to scan to a postscript file because it is not a choice on our scanning software. Do you know of any software that would allow us to scan in .ps?

[W_T_...@adobeforums.com]

I've never seen a scanner that will natively save into PS because PS isn't really the best format for all-raster images. Best to save into TIFF and then convert to PDF with Acrobat or some other applicaton. I use DaVince PDF Tools ( <http://www.davince.com> ) to do batch TIFF->PDF conversion.

[Gabrie...@adobeforums.com]

in talking with another user in the accounting field, I should not scan
documents below 300 dpi. I use black and white resolution (1 bit).

Did you ask this person (the accountant) where they got this idea/information from?
Please excuse me if I sound a little upset (not upset at you in particular) but I'm sick and tired of everyone using the "300 dpi" standard. In most cases you will NOT need to scan your documents at such a high resolution. The resolution you scan a document at is highly dependent on the size of the original, the size of the placed image and what it is going to be used for. Print, screen, e-book etc.

Scanned files are incredibly huge.

Gee, I wonder why?

Are you scanning text or text with graphics? You mentioned that you are not scanning graphics. If this is the case then you should scan these documents as OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and save the text to a word processing program file. From the word processing application you should be able to print to Acrobat distiller and VIOLA! This will greatly reduce the file size and time it takes you to complete your project. In addition to all of this, you will be able to edit the text if you wish. What you plan to do with the PDF (print, screen, press, e-book) at this point wont really matter since all you'll need to do is choose from one of the options in distiller.