Preview increases pdf file size when saving

When I save a PDF journal article using Preview, it often increases the file size by 2x - 4x, regardless of whether I have added annotations. In the attached image, you can see I downloaded a journal article (2.3 MB), opened it in Preview, duplicated and saved it and the resulting copied file was 6.1 MB.
This is a problem because I it signifiantly increases the size of my synced reference library. It is worse with larger files (25 MB eBooks that increase to 80 MB).
Can anyone help me find a way to annotate a journal article and preserve the original file size? I have tried Adobe Reader (awful and buggy interface, but preserves the original size!), and several other PDF apps (e.g. Skim) seem to rely on Apple's PDF engine where the file results in a larger size as well. Using Quartz filters to reduce file size within Preview is not effective. I'm happy to purchase a program if it works well.

I have also experienced this issue. My PDF file of 300MB increased to over 900MB when I simply put one straight line annotation onto it. Effectively this made the PDF unusable since it is now very slow to open and it is too large to transfer onto my iPad. I've experienced this multiple times with a variety of PDF files, and so now simply avoid changing them in any way in Preview. I have written to Apple via apple.com/feedback and have talked to Apple store 'Geniuses' about this. Apparently it is a known issue, but there was no promise of a resolution. I love the way Preview opens quickly and displays files and also allows beautiful, smooth scrolling of PDFs. It's a pity that there's this enormous problem with annotating. If anyone knows of a solution, it would be great to hear. I've tried other PDF programmes such as Adobe for Mac, but wasn't too impressed.

Similar Messages

Preview.app increases PDF file size.

When making changes to a PDF (in my case, creating annotations), Preview.app will increase the file size of a PDF if that PDF was run through Acrobat Pro's "Reduce File Size" process. For example, I have a PDF that I created using a Book2Net book scanner. I then used Acrobat Pro 10 to OCR the file, then ran Reduce File size which shrank the file size from almost 1.6gb down to about 62mb. If I use Preview.app to make an annotation and then save the file, Preview.app will inflate the file back up to 1.6gb.
An earlier thread (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1478588?start=0&tstart=0) also discusses a similar issue. I'm not sure if those folks were also working with PDFs that were reduced in size by Acrobat Pro or not.
Anyone else have this issue?
10.6.8 on a MacBook Pro.

That is not normal. same action with acrobat and skim do not do this. Changing file size from 170mb to 780mb (my case) should not be expected.
Preview re-formats the file (which takes a while the first "save"). It may even make scrolling and searching for text faster, but is not desirable all the time.
There is NO explanation from Apple in help or online. Keeping things simple is one thing, having unexpected and unexplained behavior is another.
Last preview update made it pretty much useless for annotations anyways.
Choosing "text" annotation used to allow for clicking anywhere on the pdf and start typing. Now, it automatically creates a text box at the center of page that has to be the dragged (and make sure not dragging other annotations with it). click T multiple times, multiple text boxes on top of each other.
I never thought I would look at Windows users with jealousy. What a bad job they are doing.

Preview.app increases PDF file size after deleting pages

Hello, I'm experiencing odd behavior with Preview.app and PDFs.
If I open a PDF with Preview, delete a page, then save the file, the file size increases anywhere form 2x to 20x. This happens both with PDFs that only contain text and PDFs that contain text and graphics. It is very frustrating because I start with a file that is 150KB, remove some pages and end up with a 10MB monster that I can't email to people.
Any help is appreciated. I can post a link to a test PDF for people to try to replicate with if it would be useful.

I generated the file with pdftex. I'm guessing that there must be different ways to encode a PDF and when Preview gets something with an encoding other than that provided by PDFKit, it rewrites the file how it likes. In my case this is increasing the file sizes. I tried finding docs about PDFKit on the Apple developer site, but couldn't find any details about ways of encoding a PDF.

Using Examine Document Remove increases pdf file size !

Hi,
I have Adobe Acrobat Pro v9.3.0
I've been editing a lot of scanned .pdfs - rotating and cropping pages.
All this has previously worked fine with v8 but now I find that Acrobat 9 is increasing the .pdf file size after using Examine Document and clicking Remove
For example:
original file: 16,861 Kbytes
file after cropping 74 pages (from A4 to A5): 16,879 Kbytes
file after running Examine Document > Remove cropped metadata : 79,914 Kbytes !!!
With Acrobat 8 this process would normally have halved the file size.
Am I now doing something wrong ??
Thanks in advance.

Hello - This problem is still here !
Acrobat 9 Pro version 9.4.2
I've got a .pdf created by an agency (so not a scanned image) which I want to make as small as possible for emailing to hundreds of people (I'll attach it if possible somehow ?)
I open it up when it's 331Kb
Click Document > Examine Document
Check the Metadata and Deleted/Cropped items
Click Remove
Click File > Save As and hey presto, the new file with all that stuff supposedly removed is 2,588 Kb
Surely I'm not the only one who's bothered about .pdf file size ?

Large PDF file sizes when exporting from InDesign

Hi,
I was wondering if anyone knew why some PDF file sizes are so large when exporting from ID.
I create black and white user manuals with ID CS3. We post these online, so I try to get the file size down as much as possible.
There is only one .psd image in each manual. The content does not have any photographs, just Illustrator .eps diagrams and line drawings. I am trying to figure out why some PDF file sizes are so large.
Also, why the file sizes are so different.
For example, I have one ID document that is 3MB.
Exporting it at the smallest file size, the PDF file comes out at 2MB.
Then I have another ID document that is 10MB.
Exporting to PDF is 2MB (the same size as the smaller ID document)... this one has many more .eps's in it and a lot more pages.
Then I have another one that the ID size is 8MB and the PDF is 6MBwhy is this one so much larger than the 10MB ID document?
Any ideas on why this is happening and/or how I can reduce the file size.
I've tried adjusting the export compression and other settings but that didn't work.
I also tried to reduce them after the fact in Acrobat to see what would happen, but it doesn't reduce it all that much.
Thanks for any help,
Cathy

> Though, the sizes of the .eps's are only about 100K to 200K in size and they are linked, not embedded.
But they're embedded in the PDF.
> It's just strange though because our marketing department as an 80 page full color catalog that, when exported it is only 5MB. Their ID document uses many very large .tif files. So, I am leaning toward it being an .eps/.ai issue??
Issue implies there's something wrong, but I think this is just the way
it's supposed to work.
Line drawings, while usually fairly compact, cannot be lossy compressed.
The marketing department, though, may compress their very large TIFF
files as much as they like (with a corresponding loss of quality). It's
entirely possible to compress bitmaps to a smaller size than the
drawings those bitmaps were made from. You could test this yourself.
Just open a few of your EPS drawings in Photoshop, save as TIFF, place
in ID, and try various downsampling schemes. If you downsample enough,
you'll get the size of the PDF below a PDF that uses the same graphics
as line drawing EPS files. But you may have to downsample them beyond
recognition...
Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type, Inc.
www.pegtype.com

How can I reduce the file size when saving a psd as a pdf

I have a psd with graphics and text, it is 8.5 x 11, 300 ppi
I flatten the image and go to save as .pdf I un-check all of the options in general.
In compression, I have tried a dozen different combinations and the way I've found to get a document that is not pixelated or blurry is to use jpeg 2000 > lossless or jpeg > maximum.
So I have a high quality document but the file sizes are around 900 kb.
I have downloaded other people's documents of the exact same type and size (8.5 x 11, 300 ppi) that I am making and viewed them in Photoshop, they are not pixelated or blurry and their file sizes are 300 kb or even less than 200 kb
How are they doing this?!

Delete all unused, invisible layers.
Sometimes zip compression is better than jpg compression (in the pdf output settings). Zip is lossless, and works better with non gradient colour or no images.
Flattening the image before you save it to pdf can reduce the file size if you are using jpg compression.
Post a preview of your pdf and we can comment further on how to reduce the file size.

Increase pdf font size when downloaded as local file.

When I downloaded PDF from ALV output .The font size in pdf is very small because output table have large data ..
Is there any way so we can change the page size and increase the font size.

Hi,
Are you using two FM convert_abapspooljob_2_pdf and gui_download to create spool and download/convert in PDF ?

Minimising PDF file size when exported form KN on iPad

Hi guys
when exporting KN presentations as PDF's from my iPad is there any way to reduce file size?
I'm working in KN 2.5.1
on an iPad air
With iOS 8.1.1
thanks and appreciate any experience or insight
thanks
martin

There are no quality settings in exporting to PDF on the iPad, these settings are available on the Mac version.

Increase in file size worse in XI Pro when signing.

Hello there,
We started using AcrobatPro X for making, securing and signing PDF files of our test reports. The validity of these reports is not limited in time.
So we include this revocation information at time of signing. We use our Belgian eID-cards and place 2 signatures.
Recently I've noticed that when I use XI Pro (Win7, 64-bit) to sign the PDF (it does not matter is the file is made in X Pro or XI Pro) the size increased to 10MB.
When I sign the same file with X Pro (Vista, 32-bit) the file size only increases to 2MB ! (Here the revocation info was also included.)
(I am still looking into whether we need the LTV (or if OCSP can be used), so I did a test on XI Pro where I did not include revocation information, with the result: 4MB.)
The 10Mb file size is a problem for us as our test reports must be able to be send by e-mail.
How can the increase in file size (when signing with including the revocation information) between X and XI be explained?
How can this issue be resolved?

I have several questions:
1. What is the size of the original (before the first signature) file?
2. Do you sign with Acrobat X and Acrobat XI at the same time (you may get different CRLs with different lengths at different times)?
3. What is the PDF size after the first signature using Acrobat X?
4. What is the PDF size after the first signature using Acrobat XI?
5 and 6: the same as 3 and 4 but after the second signature?
It does not make sense to me that with Acrobat X you get 2 signatures with LTV and the total PDF size is just 2MB and with Acrobat XI you get 2 signatures without LTV and the total PDF size is 4MB. This doesn't make sense. Are you sure you're signing the same PDFs with the same credentials at about the same time in both cases? Or did you mean that PDF size increases by 2MB in the Acrobat X case and by 4MB/10MB in Acrobat XI case? I'd prefer to have the total PDF sizes not the increases.
Another test you can do is this. Turn off "include revocation information at time of signing" on Acrobat preferences, sign your sample PDF with the same 2 signatures, then right-click on each signature and select "Add Verification Information" command for each signature (this is a new way to add LTV available in Acrobat/Reader 9.1 and later). Then save this PDF and check (and report back to this forum) the PDF size. You cannot use this LTV method if you expect that some users will open this PDF with Acrobat/Reader versions prior to 9.1. Those versions will not use this LTV type.

Why is that saving as PDF increase the file sizes?

Hola
I've been notice that when I save a file as PDF, in CS5 it increase the file size to double that before.
Even saving it with the same setting than before.
For example, most of my Business Card file that I sent to print, use to be 1.5 or so megabytes
Now if I open the same file, --or a new file-- and save it, it will increase it to double that size
Any ideas?
Thanks

Hola and Thanks for your help
Ok, I've been using Photoshop since version 6 or so (around year 2000)
Just upgrade to CS5
Before, for example, I'll make a file in PS, merge the layers, open a new file whit the same dimensions, resolution etc,
and save this file as PDF to send to printers.
Tthe file(s) that I have or were create them in CS4, than saved as PDFs have a file sizes of 1 to 2 megabytes as average.
The NEW files (in the same sequence) that I create now, have an average of 3 Mbytes
Even do, I save them with the same --I believe-- setting in PDF
There's may be a new feature in PDF save dialogue box that I'm not getting?
or, it just more information that it is put into?
Thanks

PDF file size increases when I add a Email Submit button

Hello,
My PDF form is 87KB. Once I add a Email submit button the file size jumps to 525KB. Why?
Reason this confuses me is that it seems to be inconsistent. I have added this function to other PDF forms and the file size only increased a few KB. Every now & then adding a button or Javascript will increase the file size.
I have retraced my steps over & over, but I cannot find a answer to why this is happening.
Thanks for the help everyone!
-CM

The problem is the font. Use Helvetica instead. When you do, Acrobat/Reader actually use a version of Arial anyway.
When you use one of the non-base-14 fonts (Helvetica, Times, Courier, [and their bold, italic, bold italic variants] Symbol, and Zafp Dingbats) for a form field, Acrobat has to embed the entire font in the file, and some can be rather large. The base-14 fonts are guaranteed to be available for use by the compliant PDF viewer, so there is not need to embed them in the file. A viewer is allowed to substitute suitable replacement fonts, which is what Acrobat/Reader now do.
The problem is you can't simply go back and change the font to Helvetica and see the full size reduction that you'd expect after you do a Save As. This is because Acrobat does not clean up everything as well as you might expect. So what you have to do is go back to a version of the form that does not have the button, or copy & paste the field from the old form to a new PDF that doesn't have any fields, but delete the button first. Then create the button anew.

Increased file size when converted from .docx to .pdf

Hello everyone,
I have been having problems with Adobe: I need to convert a large amount of Word documents (.docx) to Adobe files (.pdf). I need to keep the size of these documents small as there are limits designated to my project. I have converted a file of 27kb recently and it turned out as 207kb pdf file. When I save this, I select "Minimum Size" when saving in the "Optimize for" area. As far as I know, when converted, .pdf files should be smaller than the original files. Please help me on this
I am using Microsoft Office 2013 and Adobe Reader XI (11.0.06)

Not wrong. Different.
As it seems you are converting by saving as in Word, rather than using Adobe software. If you own Acrobat Pro, you can both use it to make the PDF (several different ways, many settings) and analyse the space usage.

Exporting to PDF - How Can I Get A Small File Size When Using Lots of Vector Art?

I am trying to create a small PDF file for e-book distribution purposes. My Indesign pages contain a variety of photographs, vector icons and vector maps.
A publisher in Britain who does similar books on a Mac using Creative Suite was able to create a 22-page document very similar to mine (similar icons, graphics, density, etc) that is only 2.84 mb, a small fraction of the file size that I'm getting! I've included a sample page of his below, which is a low-res jpeg, but on the original PDF all of the text and images (except the jpeg cliff background) are super sharp - they look like vectors when you zoom in. I've also included screenshots of his PDF export settings.
I don't know if he's exporting directly out of Indesign, but my best guess is that he is.
My vector-based icons, numbers and maps are bloating my PDFs considerably. When I remove them, the Indesign and exported PDF file sizes drop dramatically. For the life of me, I can't figure out how he got such small PDF files sizes using so much vector art! The PDF graphic compression settings don't seem to include any options for vector art.
My vector art graphics (numbering, icons, maps) are all saved as Illustrator AI files and then placed in Indesign as linked graphics. My best guess as to why I can't achieve smaller PDF files is I'm either doing something wrong with the vector graphics themselves or handling/exporting them improperly out of Indesign.
I am using CS4 for PC and am on a Dell Machine running Windows 7.

I am trying to create a small PDF file for e-book distribution purposes. My Indesign pages contain a variety of photographs, vector icons and vector maps.
A publisher in Britain who does similar books on a Mac using Creative Suite was able to create a 22-page document very similar to mine (similar icons, graphics, density, etc) that is only 2.84 mb, a small fraction of the file size that I'm getting! I've included a sample page of his below, which is a low-res jpeg, but on the original PDF all of the text and images (except the jpeg cliff background) are super sharp - they look like vectors when you zoom in. I've also included screenshots of his PDF export settings.
I don't know if he's exporting directly out of Indesign, but my best guess is that he is.
My vector-based icons, numbers and maps are bloating my PDFs considerably. When I remove them, the Indesign and exported PDF file sizes drop dramatically. For the life of me, I can't figure out how he got such small PDF files sizes using so much vector art! The PDF graphic compression settings don't seem to include any options for vector art.
My vector art graphics (numbering, icons, maps) are all saved as Illustrator AI files and then placed in Indesign as linked graphics. My best guess as to why I can't achieve smaller PDF files is I'm either doing something wrong with the vector graphics themselves or handling/exporting them improperly out of Indesign.
I am using CS4 for PC and am on a Dell Machine running Windows 7.

Adobe reader will not open pdf files I have saved as, or, export as pdf to my desktop (latest Maverick). The same file does open when I am on the source website (i.e. user manuals etc.). Why?

Adobe reader will not open pdf files I have saved as, or, export as pdf to my desktop (latest Maverick). The same file does open when I am on the source website (i.e. user manuals etc.). Why?

iMac G4, Mac OS X (10.4.9)
Make sure you have the latest Adobe Reader installed for your OS.
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?platform=macintosh&product=10
Did you try using Preview. If you control click on the PDF on your desktop you can use the "open with" option.

Why does PDF file size increase each time I "save" tagging tasks?

Why does PDF file size increase each time I "save" tagging tasks?
Given:
1) I'm running Acrobat Pro 11.0.07 (this is most current version)
2) My file size starts at 750mb and ends up 15mb when finished tagging.
3) Only certain documents experience this increase, i.e., no visible pattern of document characteristics
4) PDF's are not full of images...in fact, mostly <H1> <H2> <H3> <P> <Figure> alt text, ect.
5) Occurs with text PDF's and/or fillable forms (again, does not happen to all documents...only some)
6) File increase occurs incrementally as tagging tasks are performed; i.e., each new save increases file size a few megabytes.
7) Occurs whether I "save" or "save as"
8) Difficult to optimize these files without corruption
9) I'm running Mac OS 10.9.4 (this is most current version)

Thank you so much for responding! I've been experimenting with the SAVE AS vs. SAVE for the past few days...and you are correct. It's funny because I've been tagging files for 2 years and never noticed this. Probably b/c I use both methods depending on the tagging tasks...some are more complicated than others and should not be overwritten. In those cases I SAVE AS new file.
I love this forum...thank you again!

Preview increases pdf file size when saving

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