The Ink Spot

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8:18 AM

A new research project, ‘Women in type’, led by Professor Fiona Ross, is featured in the January 2018 newsletter of the @LeverhulmeTrust (see p. 11). https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Jan%202018%20newsletter_final.pdf

Tweeted by UniRdg_Typo on February 8, 2018 at 7:20 PM

1 hour later…

joojaa

9:45 AM

@JohnB The core isnt suspposed to land either

3 hours later…

Vincent

12:37 PM

@WELZ general question quality is falling a bit recently. Or I am more grumpy. Probably the latter.

WELZ

@Vincent more likely the former, you're not the only one noticing it.

joojaa

@Vincent Hahaaa... you said what i wanted to say

WELZ

Can somebody possibly help me out, it was kinda hard to explain the question, but I'm personally not really sure how to make it clearer / easier to understand, I tried whatever I could. (I already have 2 close votes)

joojaa

12:49 PM

@WELZ i think its fine

most questions get close votes in my experience

CrazyQwert

1:39 PM

hello

is here somebody who might be able to give me general directions regarding PDF export in InDesign?

Or is this the wrong room for that? I don't want to post another question here on stack exchange since I think it either will be a duplicate or will need a lot of back and forth that results in unnecessary spam ...

1 hour later…

Vincent

2:44 PM

@CrazyQwert hi Qwert

what do you want to know?

CrazyQwert

3:02 PM

hi!

Well, I am trying to export a PDF that has bookmarks and hyperlinks in order to enable a clickable table of contents. Therefore I cannot use the PDF/X presets, as they do not let you include hyperlinks and bookmarks.

Now here's the thing: When I export it with PDF/X presets it is around 5 mb. When I use a custom preset it has 40 mb, which obviously is to big ...

I dont why ... I don't get it. I do not use CMYK colour profiles. I included the sRGB colour profile. No thumbnails are included, and my image compression settings are lower than what the PDF/X presets have

where is all this file size coming from? This is driving me crazy ... I have spent about 1h watching videos on this **** export dialogue ... but I am seemingly to dumb to figure it out

Vincent

@CrazyQwert you might want to try and export as an Adobe PDF (Interactive) rather than an Adobe PDF (Print)

you only need a PDF/X preset when you are making a PDF to be sent to a commercial printer

CrazyQwert

@Vincent ok, I'll try that.

Vincent

from a print PDF, interactivity like bookmarks and hyperlinks will get deleted because those can't be printed

conversely, the Print PDF will include big versions of the images, for it needs hi-res versions to be able to print correctly

You'll have to choose it when choosing the file format to export in. There should be two PDF options, one (Print), one (Interactive)

(This would make a great Q on the site, btw)

I'm pretty sure more people are confused about this

CrazyQwert

hi, thanks! it is now down to about 4 mb

you're a live-saver ... this was driving me crazy

I am still kinda confused ... I mean the PDF/X presets also only generated files of about 6 mb

only when I was using PDF (print) and a custom preset the file got that big

Vincent

@CrazyQwert possible

especially if you don't have many images

CrazyQwert

3:10 PM

what on earth could I have been doing wrong to make it increase that much?

Vincent

not subsetting fonts?

having a big image or two?

CrazyQwert

I am sorry, what does subsetting fonts mean? :D

Vincent

ah.

when you export a pdf with any text, you usually embed the font files of the fonts you have used into the pdf

CrazyQwert

@Vincent probably only one (the cover), but I made sure to use more compression than PDF/X

Vincent

that takes care of the pdf being openable and viewing correctly on the machine of anyone who doesn't have those fonts installed

it's one of the big strengths of PDF

CrazyQwert

3:12 PM

@Vincent ah, I see

Vincent

but if you use multiple fonts, and you embed all of those, the file may bloat

subsetting is telling InDesign to only include information of the font files about the characters you have used

so if you used a single character of, say, webdings, it only inludes that character and not the whole webdings font

CrazyQwert

hmm ... but do they amount to that much? I mean it wasn't just one mb or two, but 5 mb vs 40 mb in file size

Vincent

glad I could help

I have no clue how you got yourself to 40 megs hehe

CrazyQwert

damn xD

Vincent

are there any effects? gradients, drop shadows?

blending modes in use?

(like multiply, screen, colour burn etc.)

CrazyQwert

3:14 PM

I guess so. i have a lot of links from ai files that use drop shadows

Vincent

vector files, those?

CrazyQwert

yes, but the shadow is still raster even in illustrator afaik

Vincent

ah yeah indeed

CrazyQwert

at least if you use the effect in the appearance panel

Vincent

it's mostly InDesign native effects that can bloat a cPDF file

especially with the earlier standards like :2001

that one doesn't even understand a gradient, and will chop it up in tiny slivers of rectangles with each a different colour

that increases file size fast

CrazyQwert

3:16 PM

oh god

that sounds awful

Vincent

shrug only if you overuse gradients in InDesign itself, or in a vector file

CrazyQwert

maybe that was the cause ... maybe there is some predefined setting in the /X standards that does something about those drop-shadows that was / is not present in my preset

will have to investigate further

Vincent

I remember having a design that used a gazillion of gradients and some bitmap textures that would not compress to a :2001 PDF of any handlable size

I ended up exporting the image as a hi-res jpg from Illustrator and placing that in InDEsign to make the cPDF :)

CrazyQwert

I hate stuff like that ... it always takes so long to figure out what the cause is ... not to mention that one always tries to preserve the quality ... resulting in multiple hours of fighting against ever increasing compression :D

Vincent

well, next time just join us here and we might be able to help you out :)

technically, increasing compression is a good thing, but I know what you mean :P

CrazyQwert

3:23 PM

will keep that in mind! Again, thanks a lot ... I really had no idea what to do anymore :)

Vincent

welcome :)

2 hours later…

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4:59 PM

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