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save large illustrator file into pdf without losing quality
I have created an illustrator file with pictures in it that is HUGE—When I save it as a pdf, it’s 200 mb and the newspaper won’t take it that large. I’ve tried zipping it but it doesn’t make a difference and the newspaper won’t take zip files. I can’t figure out why the Illustrator file is so large to begin with – even with the pictures, 200 mb is unreasonably large, right? Does anyone know how to keep the file from being so large and how to compess it or save it as a pdf that is a reasonable size?
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2 Replies
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When you save as .ai file, the default is to for SAVE AS PDF COMPATIBLE to be on. If you are not going to place your .ai file in another Adobe program turn that OFF. Your file will save much quicker and smaller, especially if you link to images rather thatn embed.
You should easily be able to get smaller than 200mb for a graphic that is letter size or smaller. I would save your PDF with the images compressed to max quality. The human eye will nto notice any quality difference with that small amount of compression. Find out what DPI your images should be from your printer, and adjust aht when saving your PDF, you images might be of much higher quality thatn the best the output devie can do.
Newspaper alwasy used to be 65 lpi which meant 130 dpi was good enough, but todays newspapers print more color covers so am guessing they are around 100 lpi which menas you probably want about 200 dpi, but not more than 300 dpi.
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This fix worked perfectly for me:
When you Save a PDF with Illustrator, that is essentially an Illustrator document. It’s meant to be used as part of a PDF workflow, so it is saving as much information as it can.
If you want to make a shareable PDF with the smallest file size, choose File ? Print and print to PDF. That is a final PDF that is meant for distribution.
As found in
https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/67497/adobe-illustrator-is-making-my-pdfs-huge-why
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