I frequently generate large scientific papers with a lot of high resolution graphic content, which puts a premium on getting as small a pdf file as possible, with the best graphic performance possible e.g. to fit the 6 Mb limit in archives like arXiv. Here's how I do it, based on the results from this paper and its pdf version to get just under 6 Mb with best quality possible.
| Uncompressed PDF | 33.6 Mb |   |
| Standard Mac Compressed | 9.2 Mb |   |
| Distiller 116 low | 8.1 Mb |   |
| Distiller 100 low Smallest File Size | 4.8 Mb |   |
| Preview 116 ex Postscript | 8.9 Mb |   |
| Preview 116 ex uncompressed PDF | 6.9 Mb |   |
| Final after Acrobat Professional text scan ex Preview 116 | 5.8 Mb |   |
1. I produce the original document from Word, with Mac Equation for math expressions, although I hate many clunky aspects about Word. This enables me to generate both a pdf and an html version of the paper.
If you use graphic files in tif format thoughout, and generate an html version using Save as Web Page, Word will generate both a high res png copy of each image and a low res scaled jpg version within the web page. The html document can then be live-linked using a web editor, so that clicking the low-res image links to the high-quality full-res png version.
2. To get the pdf version, I then print the article to (uncompressed) pdf using the standard mac Print option Save as PDF. This gives a large pdf with uncompressed, or only lightly compressed, images. I don't take it to postscript although Preview would also convert this, because the process I am about to describe doesn't compact as efficiently from ps as from uncompressed pdf for reasons which remain unclear.
3. In the link filters.zip is a set of fine-tuned graphic compression Quartz filters for Mac Preview which can be simply dragged as a filters folder into your library folder or added to your filters folder if your library already has one. Preview will immediately recognize these filters.
4. Now open the pdf generated by Word in Preview, do Save as and choose Format to be PDF. The filter options will now appear in the pull-down menu Quartz filter. If the several new options provided are insufficient, you can easily edit these filters as simple program source files to get exactly the compression and resolution you desire. Because you can set the bit resolution and compression as real parameters in the filter files, this provides finer tuning and noticeably superior results to those one can get adjusting the settings with Distiller 7, where the compression is just low, med, high and max. This means you can tailor the compression to bring you just under a specific file size ceiling, while retaining the best possible quality. Notice the severe compression artefacts in the blue region in the left-hand images in both Distiller settings.
5. Now open the resulting Preview pdf file in Acrobat Professional (not the Reader) and Save as. This doesn't appear to alter the graphics but will scan the text to remove redundant font and other declarations, which can significantly increase the size of the non-graphic pdf 'text' code. Sometimes this can take several minutes, with the spinning rainbow 'wheel of death' indicating the application is (temporarily) not responding in my Acrobat. 7.0.
The resulting pdf should now have an ideal compression with minimal file size.
6. One negative feature of the relationship between Microsoft and Apple is that live links in Word for Mac do not appear as live in the pdf file, but just blue text, unless they were written precisely as an html address in the document itself. Setting a link in Word with Insert Hyperlink works on Mac only in the doc file, not the pdf. E.g. a link looking like http://refsite.com works in the pdf, but a hyperlink named "Reference Site" doesn't. There are a lot of blogs lamenting this and I haven't found a work around. Using the Windows version of Word preserves the links correctly, but hashes some of the equations. Thus I re-edit the blue text in Acrobat Professional, which can be done quite quickly using the link tool in Advanced Editing.