losing image quality Pdf

The Best Quality PDF at 675 KB from an 11MB Pages document is dependent upon the image quality, its size, and how effectively Pages uses the System PDF library to generate that PDF. Most of which is out of your hands, and 675 KB may be as good as it gets.

Download the free, LibreOffice Suite (7.0.2), and add your same image to a blank page, and export to PDF. LibreOffice's export panel allows you to control the image dpi, and uses its own PDF library. What is the size of this exported PDF using a different PDF library?

LibreOffice cannot open, export, or save to Pages document format, but can directly to Word .docx or PDF. Once installed, you right-click on the LibreOffice icon in your Applications folder, and choose Open, and then in the next dialog, click Open again. That is a one-time ritual. In LibreOffice, choose Writer document, add your image, and generate the PDF.

Any use of transparency, including opacity changes, Text boxes with transparent backgrounds (default), reflections, borders, or images with transparency will result in unplanned, low resolution (72 dpi) PDF content. The use of 72 dpi screen captures, and dragged-in web images will also demote sharpness in an exported PDF.

In earlier versions of Pages, there was a noticeable difference in PDF quality between Export : Best and Print : PDF : Save as PDF. Although there still is a small PDF size difference, the quality difference is virtually indistinct now.

Any attempt to alter the size of a PDF using Quartz compression will further degrade the overall quality of the PDF. If you did that, before you posted about losing PDF quality, then that is why. Same drill if you use that Pages File menu : Reduce File Size, before exporting to PDF. There are no quality freebies in this paragraph.

You don't state whether that is an eBook, or a printed, bound book. You really should talk with the printer about their particular submission criteria because they may require a very high resolution image (600 dpi), specific font color settings, or a particular PDF standard (PDF/A, PDF/X) that are not supported in Apple application PDF generation.

If you are using File > Export to > PDF ... have you chosen 'Best' in the Image Quality dropdown?

SG