Creating smaller PDF files

Among the many advantages of PDF files are that you can open them on any computer and they look just the way they were created - you don't need the original software which created the document, nor the fonts - and generally the file size of the PDF is smaller than the original. But not always. Sometimes, they come out bigger, which can be a frustration. This usually occurs because the document contains multiple images. Here are several tips to get the PDF file size down:
1. Images are often imported into the original larger than needed, and then scaled down. Unfortunately, all the original image information is still retained. So use an image editing program to resize the graphic before importing. Also consider reducing the resolution of the graphic. Any resolution greater than 225 dpi is unnecessarily high, and if the document is only going to be seen on a computer (ie, it won't be printed), then a resolution as low as 72 dpi is probably adequate.
2. Images are often also cropped when they are imported into the document. Crop before importing and you will save a lot.
3. When you export or save the file as a PDF, check the compression. For many purposes, medium or even low compression values will be adequate, making a huge difference in file size.
4. Another way to reduce file sizes is to do a "Save As" of the original document before making the PDF. This purges unneeded information which otherwise keeps getting added to the document but is not deleted. (For instance, all those changes you make while editing the document are actually held in the file, unseen but clogging up the document.)
5. If you're making a PDF for the Web and/or if you're not concerned about printing colors, use the RGB color space. RGB has one less data channel than CMYK, so your files will be that much smaller.
6. Embedded fonts also take up space, so keep the number of fonts to a minimum.
All that being said, you may be saddled with a PDF made by someone else (as happened to me this week), and you want to reduce the file size. There are numerous programs that can edit PDF files, the best-known being Adobe Acrobat. But that's very expensive. PDFill PDF Editor comes out a lot cheaper, but it's still commercial software. Fortunately, from the same stable comes a tool that did the job for me nicely. PDFill Writer is a free print driver that has a lot of options when saving the file. Once it was installed, I opened the over-sized PDF file, hit the Print button, and chose PDFill Writer as the print driver. It gave me a lot of options for recompressing the graphics, and voila! a 25% saving in size. Another free tool at the site is PDFill Tools, which allows you to do interesting things like split PDF documents, and merge several PDF files.

Dreamweaver to PDF

A while ago I was stumped by the question of how to convert web pages authored in Dreamweaver to pdf files. This is probably not on the horizon of most of you, however for the record there is a simple answer. Microsoft Word opens html documents happily, and for the most part renders them fairly faithfully, although it sometimes struggles with images used as a background in a table. It is a simple matter then to convert the Word document to a pdf.

Dreamweaver to PDF - help wanted

This might be a bit specialised for many, but I could use some help. I am creating some web documents in Dreamweaver and would like to convert them to pdf files. Alternatively, convert to some format that I can email to others so they can view the finished product. Any ideas greatly received.

Converting pdf files to Word or text format

I frequently have to try and convert pdf files to editable text, and it usually is a hassle. Acrobat has a tool to grab and copy text, which you can then paste into a Word document, but among the resulting problems is that every line of text has a forced return, and paragraphs are made by two forced returns. Here is a tip to fix this, using Word's Find and Replace function. (1) Type Ctrl-H to bring up the Find and Replace dialogue box. In Find, type ^l^l. (^l finds forced, or soft, returns, so you are asking Word to find instances where there are two forced returns.) In Replace, type some nonsense character, such as ##. Choose "Replace all". (2) In Find, type ^l. In Replace, replace the ## with a spacebar space. Choose "Replace all", and this will strip out all soft returns, replacing them with a space. (3) In Find, type ##, and in Replace type ^p (the character to find Paragraph returns). Choose "Replace all". (4) Finally, in Find, replace the previous characters with a double spacebar space. In Replace, type a single space. Choose "Replace all" and all double spaces will be converted to singles. Voila! It's clumsy, I know, but at least it works. In the same way, if you have a document that uses a paragraph return at the end of every line, you can use the same technique.
Knowing there must be a better way to convert pdf documents, I have searched high and low for a freeware program, completely without success. (Yes, there are plenty of commercial products, but I am dedicated to open-source where possible.) The best I have come up with - discovered today - is an internet service, KoolWIRE, which is rather nifty. Using the site, you email them a copy of the pdf file, and they quickly email you back a Word conversion (mine came back within two minutes, which is remarkable). The result was not perfect, but the closest to the originating document that I have seen in tests.

PDF files

Adobe's popular PDF format is a wonderful boon for reading documents they way they were created on any computer. But the free Adobe Reader program is bloated and "phones home" regularly for updates.It also doesn't let you point out errors or add comments. What can do the latter is Tracker Software's free PDF-Xchange Viewer. This application can't create PDF files, but it supports many kinds of markup, from highlighting to circles to sticky notes--and you can even export the product as another PDF. The download file is 10mb, which is a bit hefty, but still much smaller than Reader.
Another useful PDF reader is Foxit Reader, even smaller than X-Change Viewer (about 4mb download). As with many free programs, there's some advertising to sit through. The install also asks to add a Foxit toolbar as well as an eBay shortcut, and it wants to set your homepage to Foxit Software. I don't recommend any of these, so watch carefully. Also, though the free version lets you alter content, there are watermarks in the finished product that are only removed when you purchase the $40 Pro Pak version.
For the smallest of the small, though, Sumatra PDF wins the prize. It's only 1mb in size, which these days is tiny. It has a very basic interface, and really only does one thing: reads PDF files. But it is free.

Doing it for free

One of the great things about the internet is that for almost every high-priced piece of commercial software, there is a free alternative available. In fact, some of the free offerings beat the pants off the commercial, particularly at the price! Here are some of my "can't do without" favourites:
Irfanview - an image editor (think Photoshop lite), that also doubles as a photo organiser. Has amazing capabilities for such a small footprint. Can also play many video files (eg, the movies you take on your digital camera).
Audacity - a sound editor I use all the time. You can also stretch or condense sounds (including songs) without changing pitch, move songs up or down a key, and much more.
OpenOffice.org - equivalent to Microsoft Office. Has all the bells and whistles, without the awful "ribbon" introduced by Office 2007 (and which I loathe). Has modules equivalent to Excel, PowerPoint and Access, as well as a drawing module, but the PowerPoint module is not well implemented and probably is better avoided.
EditPad Lite - a general-purpose text editor (a replacement for the Windows Notepad, but can do much more), small and compact with lots of functions.
Copernic Destop Search - I have posted separately on this.
VLC Media Player - can play all those videos and movies that Windows Media Player won't touch. Don't be fooled by its utterly basic interface.
CDex - a CD ripper (ie, copies music tracks from your CDs to your computer).
PdfEdit995 - Can create pdf files from any programme that has a print function. Can also convert pdf documents to Word format files, and much more.
Feel free to share your top favourites.