Reducing .pdf size with InDesign

Good morning everyone!
I have downloaded the trial version of InDesign to see if its the right tool to a very specific problem we are having in our engineering office and I have never used InDesign before.
I need to dramatically reduce the overall file size of multi-page PDFs for underlaying in AutoCAD while retaining the detail from the original. The PDF files we recevied from our client are rather large and underlaying them "as is" brings AutoCAD to a crawl. I have been able to shrink the files appropriately in Illustrator but I would have to do it one page at a time to be able to reduce the file size which does not solve our time problem (I have one project in the pipeline that is going to require 200 pages). JPEG's kind of work which I can do in batches in Illustrator, but AutoCAD does not have automation for underlaying JPEGs. Keeping the PDF in vector fomat is the ideal solution if we can get the file size down.
So far I have opened illustrator and tried to run the script for adding a multi-page PDF and what I bring in retains absolutely no detail from the PDF.
So two questions:
1) Can/How do I bring in a PDF drawing so it retains the vector detail, and
2) Can I use Illustrator to shrink down the file size of a multi-page PDF (Adobe pro doesn't bring it down far enough)
I know this is nowhere near the purpose of InDesign, but its our last avenue to solve our underlay issue in a way where everyone might win.
Thank you!

You have to check where is highest amount of space used in the pdf? Are these images or structures you need or you don't need? Is it a profile? Use the audit function in the Acrobat Pro Optimizer dialog.
When you know which part of the content of the pdf could be dismissed you can set up a properly pdf export setting or use a different export functionality to create pdfs like the export of interactive pdfs which will output smller pdfs.

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Post your question in the forum for Adobe Acrobat.

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There are several different, and contradictory, meanings of "flatten" so it's on order to ask exactly what kind of flattening they want and what tools to do it with.
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2. When you save as PDF/X1-a or PDF/X-3 it will always be flattened; that's the rules.
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Can anyone advise how to make the smallest possible PDF file size, to be added to a website?
I have a 40 page document, originally produced in Quark, then exported as a postscript file, then converted to PDF using Distiller. I have used the PDF optimiser in Acrobat 7.0.9, along with the 'Reduce File Size' option, but have only been able to compress the PDF down to 9.5MB. I'm sure I have seen other multi-page PDFs online at much smaller sizes - how do they do it??
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(I am using a 1.8ghz G5, with 1.5GB Ram, incase that helps!)

Like Andrea, I too have a series of largish (about 30 pages each) documents to make into pdfs for putting on a website. I'm getting big file sizes (about 8-10mb), even when I save them as a 'screen' quality pdf. My images are jpgs (none very large) but there are quite a lot of roll-overs (at least 100 per document). I've used InDesign CS to create the files and am currently using Acrobat CS Professional 6. I have optimised them in every way I can think off.
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Howdy,
I've just switched from InDesign CS3 to CS5 and I was creating interactive PDF's for my portfolio.
I work as a retoucher and all I was doing was making an image change from the "before" to the "after" image when the cursor rolledover the image. Easy-peasy job done.
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Rollovers are currently not working properly, we expect a fix shortly.
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Reduce file size with action wizard

(German version below)
Hey,
I got two questions for action wizard in Acrobat XI Pro.
I try to reduze file size of many PDFs using acion wizard. My tests worked fine but now I got some problems I try to explain now:
1. I add a directory with many subdirectorys to my process list. Adobe now adds not only PDFs to my list, it also adds JPGs, DOCs etc. That means I have to delete every single file I not want to convert to PDF cause I only want to reduce file size of excisting PDFs. Is there any possibility to only add PDFs in my processing list?
2. If a PDF is opend by any other user I get a information about it. This info I need to acknowledge every time it pops up cause my process interrups. Is there any possibility to ignore this info?
I´m happy for any help i can get here. Thx.
Regards
(Sorry for bad english, it´s not my favorite language )
Hallo Leute,
ich benötige Hilfe beim Benutzen des Aktionsassistenten im Acrobat XI Pro.
Ich versuche bei sehr vielen PDFs die Dateigröße zu verringern. Dazu habe ich mir eine Stapelverarbeitung per Aktionsassistent erstellt die bei meiner Testumgebung auch super funktioniert. Leider habe ich noch einige Probleme für die ich Hilfe benötige:
1. Wenn ich einen Ordner mit sehr vielen Unterordnern und verschiedenen Inhalten einfüge möchte ich eigentlich nur die PDFs verarbeiten. Leider fügt Acrobat auch alle JPGs DOCs etc. hinzu. Ich muss also alle unerwünschten Dokumente herausfiltern, da auch keine sortierung vorhanden ist. Bei mehreren Tausend Dokumenten nicht leistbar. Gibt es hier eine Möglichkeit nur PDFs in die Stapelverabeitung aufzunehmen?
2. Sollte die Verarbeitung mal laufen kommt es hin und wieder vor das die PDFs durch einen Benutzer geöffnet sind. Ich bekommen hier eine Meldung von Acrobat die ich erst bestätigen muss bevor es weiter geht. Da das Programm eigentlich über mehrer Tage/Wochen im Hintergrund laufen soll passt mir das gar nicht wenn ich alle Stunde überprüfen muss ob die Stapelverabeitung noch läuft.
Ich hoffe es gibt jemanden der mir helfen kann. Ich bin über jede hilfreiche Antwort glücklich.
Gruß

For starters, let's refer to your original post: "this is indeed a serious problem and step back in functionality..." This statement is a quite ridiculous assertion, unnecessarily dramatic, wholly inaccurate, and unhelpful. Your statement "is this a joke" and "I know Acrobat tends to choke...etc..." is just pure gibberish and polemical. It is quite easy to feed any application enough data to cause a performance failure, but one would really need to question one's motive and prudent use of one's time at this point - unless you are tasked with stress and load testing the software to determine minimum working requirements.
'Batch Processing' is, since Acrobat 9.x, dead and gone, Acrobat 11's approach is to aggregate many hitherto unavailable tools and commands and allow the user to create custom workflows. More interactivity has been built into the process, which may or may not be desirable in each case depending on the workflow context and requirements. But we have obviously moved away from the concept of processing a large number of files and towards a more targeted and effective processing of smaller sets of files. The default Actions we deliver with Acrobat 11 reflect this intention.
The feature "Batch Processing", which was an Acrobat feature from A5 (I believe) up to A9, previously had been hidden in Menu/Advanced/Document Processing/Batch Processing has been wholly replaced by a completely overhauled framework called Actions, now part of the Tools panel, and will be immediately accessible when Tools is called in the UI.
Thus the obscured Batch Processing may have been a tool considered and used by an extremely small set of users to do exactly that, i.e., batch process a large number of files, but had been fairly inflexible, generally speaking, and buggy. We were very well aware that if we were to overhaul the feature, add a considerably larger number of available tools and commands in Acrobat, provide wide possibilities for customization built towards specific workflows, and bring it to the forefront, we were going to sacrifice some of the aspects of batch processing a large number of files. Not calling it "Batch Processing" anymore - because it isn't - may be an indication of this intention.
Personally I have used and tested Batch Processing periodically during various Acrobat projects, but I don't remember encountering the "Reduce File Size" command - which is a subset of Save and file optimization - to use within a batch sequence. I may be wrong, and your screen shots would be welcome here. In fact go ahead and construct a batch sequence that (1) uses 'Reduce File Size and (2) applies file type filters to it, and post it either here or to me privately. I would be happy to be wrong. But regardless, we are grateful for positive input that points out defects, allows us to improve the functionality of the product, providing the intended changes are reasonable, and that the communication of said issues remain respectful of this process and of the individuals we depend upon to implement these changes. The tone of your response comes very close to rendering a proper consideration of this issue irrelevant.

REDUCE FILE SIZE with Acrobat Pro

Hi everyone!
I created a epk for a rock band with Illustrator then I created one pdf that contains the all three pages with Acrobat Pro (I downloaded the trial because it was just for this occasion) This epk is a pdf file with 3 pages, some pictures and hyperlinks.
I need to send the epk to the band and they want a reduced size one. The original is 8.3 M but obviously it's too big to be sent via email.
I have been trying with the option SAVE AS - REDUCED SIZE PDF but it doesn't work! Still the same size.
I am new to acrobat so maybe I am missing something.
HELP!
Thanks

Hi michelab,
You can also try choosing Save As > Optimized PDF. There are various settings in that dialog box that you can manipulate to bring down the file size. Here's the Help topic on that dialog box, with information about the various settings:http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/optimizing-pdfs-acrobat-pro.html
Please let us know how it goes.
Best,
Sara

[CS4-CS5] Is this a safe way to reduce pdf size?

I've had a couple of similar requests this week from clients: "Could you send us a smaller version of the pdf, so we can email it?" As these files weren't going to the printers, I played around a bit in Indesign and Acroba to find a solution. I know about reducing image resolution, but as these jobs had almost no bitmaps in them, so that wasn't an option.
I did notice that the pdf document overhead numbers were ridiculously high, up to 80% in one case. I tried various things, but the most effective way to educe this was by saving the pdf as a postscript file and then distilling a new pdf from it. It worked like a charm, but I'm left wondering what caused the high overhead numbers in the first place, and what happens 'under the hood' in that postscript round-trip.
Also, is this at all safe to do? I didn't notice anything out of place in the new file - it certified ok as well, but is this something to avoid or not?
Thanks for any light on this issue.

If you have a modern Acrobat, you could also check with Advanced -> Print Production -> PDF Optimizer; then, in the dialog that pops up select the "Audit Space usage" button. For a fair comparison you would have to do this with your original exported PDF and with the distilled version -- and note the numbers down or take a screen shot, because Adobe didn't think you'd want to select this as text ...
Are you saying you would feel safe sending such a reduced file to press?
Ha hum. Your new files got way smaller, beyond a fairly reasonable amount. Are you sure you didn't downsample any and all bitmaps to screen rez?
You are right, given these differences I'd send the larger file to print. But I imagine your client is going to be impressed by your compression technique.

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And what does "downloaded from a website" mean? As PDF? If so, it doesn't matter. You would simply flatten and optimize the PDF. Symbols are AI specific and don't carry over to foreign formats, so it would be wasted effort trying to replace anything. if you still must, try this: http://www.illustrationetc.com/AI_Javascripts/ReplaceScripts.htm
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When you have those scanned documents in the computer, and choose
Print> Save as PDF> what size file(s) are generated at the page level?
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