FM12: PDF file size exploding

Tue Feb 17 11:54:46 PST 2015

I’m not sure if this would work in structured FrameMaker but you could change the PDF compatibility before printing. The File compatibility bloats the size of the PDF if you make your document compatible with too many past versions of Adobe Reader.

1)      Go to print document under the File dropdown

2)      Under Printer select Setup and then select Adobe PDF from the Print Setup display screen

3)      From the same screen select Properties…

4)      From the Adobe PDF Document Properties display screen select Edit next to the Default Settings

5)      From the Standard – Adobe PDF Settings display screen, go to the Compatibility dropdown under File Options. Select the latest version of PDF available.

6)      Select OK. A Save Adobe PDF Settings As window will appear. Give a new name to this job option and then press Save.

Salome

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Lin Sims
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2015 2:08 PM
To: Scott Prentice
Cc: Frame Users
Subject: Re: FM12: PDF file size exploding

Ah! More information I left out!
The book is an unstructured book, but it includes 3 files that were created from structured data. Those 3 files are still structured, because that's the only way to keep the xref links working.
The process is this:

  1.  An Excel 2010 spreadsheet is converted to multiple .xml files by using a script, which inserts the correct DITA tags and also creates a .ditamap for them.
  2.  The ditamap is converted into a Frame book using DITAFMx, which gives me a book file with a TOC and a single .xml.fm<http://xml.fm> file.
  3.  The .xml.fm<http://xml.fm> file is added to an unstructured Frame book but is left as a structured file.
  4.  The book is updated/generated and then a PDF is generated using Save As PDF.
As I said, when I was working in FM10, the PDF had a size of about 3, 3.5M.
The files were recently converted from FM10 to FM12. When I use the above process and generate the PDF from FM12, the file size has gone to about 12-13M. The files that had been converted from .xml to .fm have not changed since the last time I created the PDF in FM10. The rest of the files have changed but not in a major way.
In a few days I expect to regenerate those .xml files from the source Excel, so maybe something will change. It just seemed weird that the move from FM10 to FM12 seemed to result in such a large increase in the PDF size.

I'll keep y'all posted.

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 1:57 PM, Scott Prentice <sp14 at leximation.com<mailto:sp14 at leximation.com>> wrote:
If these files started off as XML or structured files, and the others didn't, there could definitely be some extra cruft in there. You probably checked this already, but are these files still structured?

I haven't noticed any significant size difference in PDFs from XML from FM11 to FM12. I just did a quick test of a single page .. when saved to PDF from FM11 it's 63KB and from FM12 it's 69 KB .. over 100 pages that might be a difference of 60KB. Not a big difference from my perspective.

Doing a similar test with an unstructured file, the FM11 PDF is 34 KB and the FM12 PDF is 40KB.

The structured/XML sourced file actually has less content than the unstructured file, and the resulting PDF is larger .. so it's possible that your PDFs that come from XML may be larger. And there does seem to be an increase in size (from both structured and unstructured) in PDFs from FM11 to FM12.

You might check to see if your files are still structured .. removing the structure (if that's the intent) might reduce the file size. Also, since these files came through a different path, they may have additional content/graphics/?? on reference pages which could increase the file size.

Cheers,
...scott
On 2/17/15 9:50 AM, Lin Sims wrote:
After a bit of testing, the increase seems to be linked to 3 files that were created using DITAFMx from a batch of xml files that were generated by script from an Excel workbook. Interestingly, these files have always been part of the document (and inserted in the same way), so I'm not sure why there's a sudden file size increase.
I'll be regenerating these files again soon, so I'll see if the increase continues. It's still odd.

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 12:39 PM, David Spreadbury <dspreadb at yahoo.com<mailto:dspreadb at yahoo.com>> wrote:
Lin,
I just tested your issue opening a 12 page text only structured FM7.2 file and saving it as FM12.
Did nothing more than open the FM7.2 in FM12 and then save it as a FM12 document.
Printed FM12 version using Acro XI Adobe PDF driver.
Distilled postscript to PDF.
FM7.2 file size=358KB Acro 8 PDF=207KB
FM12 file size=8630KB Acro XI PDF=278KB
This was one chapter of a 30+ chapter book.
The Acro8 PDF of the book is 3025KB.
I can open and update all the chapters, but with only 70KB increase in one chapter, I would expect a slight increase in the book, but nothing like you are experiencing.

Dave

On Tuesday, February 17, 2015 11:18 AM, Lin Sims <ljsims.ml at gmail.com<mailto:ljsims.ml at gmail.com>> wrote:

The PDF has to be posted as a shared review on a cloud web storage site. There's a size limit to what you can upload. My company is using corporate GMAIL and I have a 30Gb limit on storage, and for now I have to attach a shared review enabled PDF to an email to allow reviewers to join the review*. Admittedly, this one file isn't going to break either of those limits, but it's not something I can keep doing for a long period of time. Plus the sudden increase in size worries me. If there's a problem with the files, I need to find it before things get hosed (and yes, I did run all the files through a MIF wash).
*I will be testing setting up a shared review by storing the shared review PDF on the cloud drive and sending a link instead, but until I do, I know this works.

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 12:04 PM, Fred Ridder <docudoc at hotmail.com<mailto:docudoc at hotmail.com>> wrote:
Not to minimize your question, but...

With the cost of computer storage running about $0.10 per gigabyte for hard disk or $0.50 per gigabyte for SSD, I'm not sure it's worthwhile worrying about 10 MB more or less. That's less than 1/2 cent's worth of storage space. Unless you know your documents are going to be posted on a website where a significant number of users do not have anything resembling broadband access, spending more than a few seconds worrying about 10 MB in file size does not yield a good return on investment.

-Fred Ridder
________________________________
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 11:26:35 -0500
Subject: FM12: PDF file size exploding
From: ljsims.ml at gmail.com<mailto:ljsims.ml at gmail.com>
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>

Has anyone had an issue with the size of a generated PDF increasing dramatically after moving a book from FM10 to FM12 (or any earlier version of FM to FM12)?

I've got a book that's gone from under 3M to over 12M, and that's AFTER running the Save as Reduced Size.
Is this a bug, have I not set something up in either FM12 or Acrobat 10 correctly, or is there a solution?
Thanks,

--
Lin Sims

--
Lin Sims

_____

--
Lin Sims

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