Removing Illustrator editing capabilities from PDF files?
AES
within a PDF file that has been prepared in Illustrator and Saved As PDF
with Preserve Illustrator editing capabilities turned on? (other than
re-opening the file in Illustrator and re-Saving it)
More detail:
I like to make 1-page PDF documents (slides) in Illustrator CS; keep
master copies with "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" turned
on; then make dupes of selected files (in the Finder) to use when I'm
putting together a presentation.
A single PDF with a few hundred characters of text and some vector
graphics (no jpegs or pixel graphics) may be only 30K in size if saved
from Illustrator as PDF with Illy editing capabilities turned off -- but
becomes 400K with the Preserve Illy editing capabilities left on.
When I try to shrink one of these back down to 30K using PDF Shrink,
using the Remove metadata and "Foreign app" options in PDF Shrink, it
only shrinks to about 350K.
Am I missing something In PDF Shrink (which I otherwise find very
useful? Can Graphic Converter do this job?
ken
srv02.tufts.ad.tufts.edu>, sie...@stanford.edu says...
> A single PDF with a few hundred characters of text and some vector
> graphics (no jpegs or pixel graphics) may be only 30K in size if saved
> from Illustrator as PDF with Illy editing capabilities turned off -- but
> becomes 400K with the Preserve Illy editing capabilities left on.
What actually happens here is that the Illustrator file is saved inside
the PDF file. When you reopen it with Illustrator it actually opens the
saved file inside the PDF file, it doesn't attempt to interpret the PDF
file.
So yes, the PDF file gets (a lot) bigger.
> When I try to shrink one of these back down to 30K using PDF Shrink,
> using the Remove metadata and "Foreign app" options in PDF Shrink, it
> only shrinks to about 350K.
>
> Am I missing something In PDF Shrink (which I otherwise find very
> useful? Can Graphic Converter do this job?
I don't know of any tools that will do the job. The data is stored in
'application-spcific' sections of the file. Only the relevant
application (usually the creator) knows what to do with these, so
everything else leaves them alone. Though the 'foreign app' sounds like
it ought to do that.
Taking a quick peek it look slike PDF Shrink possibly interprets the PDF
file and creates a new PDF from it. You could do the same with (for
example) Ghostscript. Feed the original PDF as the input, create a new
PDF (potentially with custom settings) and it will probably be OK.
Its entirely possible to create something which would specifically strip
out the Illustrator saved file, but I don't know of anything which does
it.
Of course, this is all without seeing the file, its possible there is
something different about your files.
Ken
Peter Flynn
It is possible that Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/) is able to do
this. But I have not tried.
///Peter
Matti Vuori
news:8821oa...@mid.individual.net:
> this. But I have not tried.
I was just thinking about the same thing. And Inkscape has a command line
interface that would make it possible to create a simple command to do the
thing -- in the case that it works and does not cause any side effects
(which I doubt it will).
AES
High Priest <H...@snotmail.com> wrote:
> > I like to make 1-page PDF documents (slides) in Illustrator CS...
> > When I try to shrink one of these back down to 30K using PDF Shrink,
> > using the Remove metadata and "Foreign app" options in PDF Shrink, it
> > only shrinks to about 350K.
>
>
> I was interested to read this. In my work, I have a need to remove
> metadata (more-specifically, remove the entire resource fork). I used
> to use QuickImage to do this but it no longer works in OSX. After an
> unsuccessful search, I contacted the Graphicconverter geniuses at Lemke
> Software. They quickly added a feature to do this. It's in version
> 6.72b19 which is stable. Apart from being eternally-grateful, I also
> wonder if it would help in your quest? Probably not but I mention it
> anyway, just in case.
Will try . . . thanks.
AES
ken <k...@spamcop.net> wrote:
. . . an interesting and helpful reply to my original query about PDF
files (query and reply left appended below for anyone who may want them).
Thanks much for this.
The very different responses I get when I re-open in Illustrator the
same PDF file after Saving it from Illustrator with Illustrator editing
capabilities enabled, or not enabled, is consistent with your
explanation.
=================================================
ORIGINAL QUERY & REPLY
=================================================
AES
> Is there a way to remove the Illustrator editing capabilities stored
> within a PDF file that has been prepared in Illustrator and Saved As PDF
> with Preserve Illustrator editing capabilities turned on? (other than
> re-opening the file in Illustrator and re-Saving it)
>
> When I try to shrink various test files using PDF Shrink with the
> Remove metadata and "Remove Private Application Data"
> options selected, it only shrinks by a small amount.
I have to apologize: I screwed up in testing this. I thought I had
prepared and used a PDF Shrink "configuration set" that had both of the
above options turned on; but when I went back and looked at it again,
the "Remove Private Application Data" option was not selected.
Turning on the "Remove Private Application Data" option and applying
this configuration set to a small file containing a few text items and a
few rectangles and circles, that I had saved from Illustrator with
Preserve Illustrator editing capilities turned on, reduced it from
around 400 kB to under 20 kB.
I've always had good experiences with PDF Shrink, and discovering this
capability makes it really useful for me. I appreciate Barry Bowden's
quick and helpful response (not for the first time) and am glad to put
in a strong recommendation for PDF Shrink
steggy
> Is there a way to remove the Illustrator editing capabilities stored
> within a PDF file that has been prepared in Illustrator and Saved As PDF
> with Preserve Illustrator editing capabilities turned on? (other than
> re-opening the file in Illustrator and re-Saving it)
>
> More detail:
>
> I like to make 1-page PDF documents (slides) in Illustrator CS; keep
> master copies with "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" turned
> on; then make dupes of selected files (in the Finder) to use when I'm
> putting together a presentation.
>
I followed this discussion and there is one thing I do not understand.
Why not save the Illy files like you did (with Preserve on) and save it
again (in another folder) with Preserve off? That is instead of making
dupes in Finder.