In design -file size. Help needed

[Ossian]

Hi friends!

Hopefully this is the right place to post my request :smallbiggrin:

One of our working partners is using the In-Design program to lay out a report. For some reason, everyone I know who has used the program (versions 3.0 or 4.0) has managed to save printable files (text, four colors, no pictures, circa 150 pages, of which max 20 were title pages) to 5-6 megabytes or less. This last one person though, despite the many attempts, cannot manage to produce a file which is smaller than 60 Megabytes, making it impossible to download or email.

So, from tomorrow I will try to school myself a bit on In-design, to figure whatever it is that he is doing wrong, but I would be happy to know whether any of you has had similar experiences and perhaps some advice so to give, so as to keep the file to a reasonable size.


Cheers,

Ossian

[Dallas-Dakota]

Try changing file sort?

Honestly, Indesign is not that good of a program if you're not pro with it.

Alternatively, you can always try asking on Adobe forums or such, or ask the previous person which worked on it.

[Trog]

Did they embed the graphic files? Check the... er *thinks cuz it's been a while since he used InDesign* Links? Palette. See if the imported graphic files are merely linked to the files or, instead, embedded within the file.

[Flickerdart]

Yeah, the only thing that'll make the file size explode dramatically like that is tons of images embedded in the document. By versions 3 and 4, do you mean CS3 and CS4?

[Ossian]

Yeah, the only thing that'll make the file size explode dramatically like that is tons of images embedded in the document. By versions 3 and 4, do you mean CS3 and CS4?

Hi.

Yes, I means CS 3 and 4. I will investigate into the file embedding, though the source text was just a word document (160 pages) with zero images. Perhaps some of the text blocks have been embedded as images? Don´t really know...

Perhaps you know of tutorial available on the internet, like walkthrough or something, or a youtube video?

O.

[Flickerdart]

Not that I know of. For text, it's pretty self-explanatory.

...

Hm. I may have an idea as to the problem. Does he have any overflowing text? Namely, are the 150 pages linked in continuity, or is it the entire text 150 times, deleting the parts he already had? That would...pad it quite a bit.

[MandibleBones]

If all you're trying to do is print the file, InDesign exports just fine to Adobe PDF - in fact, you can tailor your export to your printing needs in-program, and unlike other PDF-exports, this one actually works (amazingly enough, since the same company designed both products).

The export option should be in the file menu.

Of course, if you're already doing this and it's still being huge, I'm not really sure what to tell you - it shouldn't be doing that unless, as was said before, you're trying to embed images (especially color images). Even 150 pages of grayscale image should come out to about 20 megs or so if it's just rasterized text.

[potatocubed]

You can shrink the size of an exported pdf quite dramatically by playing with the export settings - there's preset in there called something like 'export for internet' which is a good starting point. (I'm away from my Indesign right now, or I'd look it up.)

What he might be doing is 'export for print' which produces huge files. On the other hand... not that huge. 150 pages of greyscale should come out to <10 MB without even trying.

...is he actually exporting the pdf in colour, but you can't tell because there's no colour content?

[Ossian]

Well, checked again, and in the file properties it says "Application: CS3 Illustrator". This sent SHIVERS down my spine. Designer ensured us she used In Design CS3 though. Mah.

It´s all text, really, and no pictures. There are maybe two shades of blue for the headings, and a bunch of text only title pages. She managed to squeeze it down to 60 Mb but it is a "web file" not even the print one. I will ask to check what she set in the "compression" tab of the export function, but even if the settings are all, say, 600dpi, it should still be below 10 Mb :smallconfused:

[MandibleBones]

Actually, Illustrator should end up with a smaller file, since all the text would be vector-based rather than raster. Now this is bugging me :smallsigh:

[Ossian]

Actually, Illustrator should end up with a smaller file, since all the text would be vector-based rather than raster. Now this is bugging me :smallsigh:

Yes, unless she did every single page of the 140 as an illustrator image, which would make the size explode ! Now, this is what I have to find out, hoping that I am wrong :)