PDF's within Panther

[nhwineguy]

I am having a major problem with using the PDF format within Panther. when the same querry is done on mac os x, the file size is very small. in Panther, it becomes 3+ M?

[CobaltSky]

Not sure I follow you, nhwineguy.

Panther is version 10.3 of Mac OS X. Are you saying that with 10.3 you are getting larger pdf files than with some other version of OS X?

And if so, how are you producing the pdf files, which version of Panther are you using (it is now up to 10.3.4), how were the files you are comparing them to created and which version of OS X were the files you are comparing them to created on?

[nhwineguy]

Hi Ray, David here.

I am using the latest version of Panther. I save as a PDF two ways, one as selecting the Adobe printer and saving it as a PDF on my desktop and then two, selecting under print, save as a PDF. both ways cause huge files. my database is fairly young and not a lot of data. i started it in 6 and have upgraded to 7. I have a company that does my programming who are exclusive in FM, but this is their first exposure to 7.0. no problems running this when I used 6.0!!

[MorFologist]

OSX creates a "full size" PDF, unless you use (In Print Menu before Save as PDF)

[Copies and Pages] -> ColorSync -> Quartz Filter -> Reduce File Size

You can edit the filters in ColorSync Utility (and also get some silly effects). It's like a child's version of Distiller.

You can modify an existing PDF by re-saving with a selected filter.

[CobaltSky]

Hi David,

I guess you are saying that the difference in .pdf file size that you are seeing is a comparison between output from v7 as compared to similar output from v6.

From our experience here, this is not an inherent problem with v7. PDFs created in 10.3.4 using the native 'Save As PSD...' option from v7 (eg a single record from a layout with a few fields on it) is about the same size (actually slightly smaller) than an equivalent (single record with the same number of fields) PDF generated from v6.

One thing that may be contributing to what you are seeing is that the formats for internal storage of graphics useds by v7 are different from those which prevailed in previous versions, so if the reports you are generating have graphical elements perhaps these are not rendering efficiently into PDF. If so, I suggest you try reimporting the graphical elements in alternate formats (eg GIF, PNG etc) and/or copying and pasting them as PICT resources from an appropriate graphics program and see if alternate combinations emable you to generate more compact PDF output.

[MorFologist]

More on compressing PDFs with ColorSync in OSX in this article:

http://www.macworld.com/2004/03/features/panthersecretsdeclassified/