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Subject:RE: Convert Paper Documentation to Web Format From:Dan Emory <danemory -at- primenet -dot- com> To:"Brierley, Sean" <Sean -at- Quodata -dot- Com>, "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 3 May 2000 09:07:39 -0700
At 11:41 AM 5/3/00 -0400, Brierley, Sean wrote:
>-----------------------Snip------------------
>Printing PDF files might be the best answer despite your reservations about
>download time. Turn off all bookmarks, and turn on and turn up graphics
>compression, and text compression, don't embed any fonts, etc. If all else
>fails, try creating a compressed file, such as ZIP format for Wintel
>downloads. PDF will display the formatting of your original document and
>will easily permit the printing of the whole document, or part of it.
>Creating PDFs will take little time, relative to other conversions.
=================================================================
Your suggestions for reducing the size of PDF files are dangerous, to say
the least, particularly for someone new to the rocket science of producing
good PDFs
For example:
1. Turning off bookmarks, particularly when the bookmarks serve as a table
of contents, takes away Acrobat's most valuable navigation feature.
2. Compressing graphics (other than vector graphics) is almost always a bad
idea that adversely affects not only the printed output but also on-line
readability.
3. Failure to embed fonts will produce completely uncontrollable font
substitutions on platforms that do not have all the fonts used in the PDF
document. Such substitutions can produce garbled text. Subsetting of
embedded fonts is the way to go, because only the characters that are
actually used are embedded.
Finally, you omitted the most effective waysto reduce PDF size: Saving the
file out of Acrobat with Optimize turned on. In many cases this action can
reduce file size almost as much as zipping does.
If, after optimizing the saved PDF document, file size is still considered
too large, zipping it may help.
====================
| Nullius in Verba |
====================
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory -at- primenet -dot- com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
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