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"Down-sampling" a pdf

Hi All.

I am new to Mac and have a 24 MB pdf that I need to make available on the web at a reasonable size. It was originally printed out at 300 dpi at 24 x 36 but I don't have access to InDesign (I used the demo). I have Pages and Acrobat Reader but I am not sure if I have Adobe Acrobat for the Mac.

Is there a way to "downsize" this document so that it does not take up so much space? I have tried saving as a jpg and a couple other file formats to no avail.

Thanks.

Mac OS X (10.6.3), Mac Pro, MacBook Pro

Posted on Dec 5, 2010 10:13 AM

Reply
13 replies

Dec 5, 2010 12:13 PM in response to fruhulda

Thanks Gents.

I hate to admit it but I kept missing the program help under Help pulldown in favor of mac help.

So I have the file open in Preview but the Tools > Adjust Size pulldown is greyed out which means I have no access to this for some reason. Any ideas?

I will keep the original for printing etcetera but I just want to make one copy at a reasonable size so it can be downloaded and opened off my website for promo purposes. I'd like to make it printable at 8 x 11 inches even though the original was at 24 x 36.

Thanks a ton.

Dec 5, 2010 1:05 PM in response to fruhulda

Hi. Thanks very much. I found it.

Can I please ask you to help me with a couple more things?

For instance, is there a way to see how big the document is either in terms of absolute size or in terms of file size? I know I can do View > Actual Size but can I see this in a dialog box where it tells me the actual units and file size?

Also, is there a way to reduce the actual size of the document to 8 1/2 x 11 inches? It appears to be reduced in size but at the actual 24 x 36 inch dimension and this means that it comes up in a browser much too large.

Is there a good way to reduce the actual dimensions so it comes up in Safari at a readable screen size?

Thanks a lot.

Dec 5, 2010 6:18 PM in response to Walt K

Hi Walt, All.

Thanks a ton for the help. I guess it would be nice not to get out of Preview to save the pdf and resize the document in a photo editor. I guess this means I need a copy of Acrobat...

Is there a Mac image editing software that would be good for resizing the jpg or whatever? I'm coming over from PC and the only thing I have is a very old version of Adobe Elements 3.0 from the purchase of a Leica Camera many years ago...

Thanks!

Dec 5, 2010 6:36 PM in response to Hotwheels22

You didn't reply to my questions but it sounds like you may have mostly text/vector on the page.

You can see a pdf's size/dimensions by getting Info on it in Preview.

Try printing from Pages to pdf using a % reduction. I leave you to do the maths.

If it comes out with a lot of white space around it in the pdf, you can crop it in Preview and resave.

Peter

Dec 8, 2010 7:52 PM in response to PeterBreis0807

Hi Peter.

Thank you. Sorry.

This was a 24 x 36 inch poster with text and images created in (a demo) of InDesign - that I printed to pdf at 300 dpi.

I wanted (actually still want) to post it to the web so it shows up with a reasonable file size, doc size and resolution.

Right now I got the file size down but it is still 24 x 36 so I'll have to - apparently get it into an image editor to resize it precisely. Scaling by a proportion after calculating it may be more than I want to do on a regular basis.

Do you mind if I ask you if you know why pdf's are 24 MB (hard to email) and whether there is a mac version of Acrobat that will let me simply print and resize pdf's?

Is there an appropriate dpi for an 8 x 11 with images and vector?

Cheers, Thanks.

"Down-sampling" a pdf

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