pdfs from OCAD9

[MrsB]

Has anyone a reason (or solution) to why OCAD9 files saved as pdf become over large files?

[greywolf]

How big does it make them for you?
I have just tried it with an A4 section of a very complex map, and using File>Export, the resulting pdf is 1.8Mb. However, using File>Print and setting the printer as Adobe PDF produces a 550Kb file (but I have Adobe CS which includes a full version of Acrobat...)
Similarly I have noticed in Condes that File>Print produces much smaller PDFs than Export>Export courses...
I suspect the PDF writer in OCAD isn't very efficient - I can't see any way to change settings.

[Freefall]

Use Cutepdf or similar. Set this as your printer option and it gives you a choice of quality hence file size.

[Knee Deep Mud!]

Did you tick the 'compress file' box in the options after doing File>Export ?

This seems to do a very good job of compressing the file I tested it on - 762kB rather than 2.3Mb without it being ticked. My pdf printer only managed 923kB for the same file.

[MrsB]

Thanks for the replies. OCAD pdf works fine most of the time, but not always. A 380kb OCAD9 file comes out as a 20mb pdf and even when compressed is still over 3mb i.e. 10x the OCAD file size. Have tried 4 other free pdf makers, output file size typically half the OCAD file size but quality not good enough and too mean to pay for the professional versions.

[MIE]

Do you still have the background .bmp or .jpg files open in background.

If you do that can do "wonders" to the export to a PDF, as the background file
will be exported, but will probably be "invisible". This will vastly inflate the size of
the PDF ( in my experience ).

[Red Adder]

The observation I would make about PDF from OCAD is that the colours always seem rather muted and there is tendency for "l" to come out as double width.

[MrsB]

Thanks for replies - yes we did have the background map deleted. We've tried free versions Primopdf, Cutepdf, Bullzip and Dopdf. Of these we got much the best results with Dopdf set to a resolution of 720dpi. This generated a 1Mb file of good quality.