You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Apple Notes PDF exported file has a huge size

Hi everyone. Just faced the problem: finished a note, it contains about 20 photos (HEIC) with its summary size less than 100MB. The note contains less than 500 sim of text. There is no any drawings from Apple Pencil.

After export the PDF file takes over 500 MB.


Could you advice please why it happens and how to fix this?


Many thanks in advance 🙌


Best/ Mike

MacBook Pro Apple Silicon

Posted on Dec 14, 2022 11:55 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 14, 2022 12:13 PM

HEIC files are highly compressed. They will be converted to a less efficient format inside the PDF. The default export to PDF operation doesn't allow customization or advanced options. It may be possible to get the PDF smaller using JPEG2000, but you would need a more advanced PDF tool for that.

3 replies

Dec 15, 2022 5:24 AM in response to Mikefromneverland

I don’t think it is fair to call that behaviour “junk”. Apple designs products to be easy to use and have a “great experience”. There is nothing about customizing PDF content that would qualify. Furthermore, PDF is a standard file format. Apple can’t make changes to it. It does what it does and those are the limits. I was just speculating on ta possibility. Most likely, a more advanced tool would only be able to shrink the file down to 400 MB instead. Apple can invent new, highly efficient formats like HEIC for its own internal use. But it has to stick with older, less efficient, harder to use mechanisms in PDF.

Apple Notes PDF exported file has a huge size

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.