Does illustrator "bloat" pdf's?

[myront]

I received 19 third party pdf files each at 11MB. Each are 18x24, all vector art, black background 3-4 words and 1 vector logo. 11MB! Same file saved from Corel is 229k.
Only thing I found by opening one of the pdf's in illustrator is that it contains all 19 signs. So I copy 1 sign and paste to a new file then save as pdf, better, but still 995k. I understand the need to have all the signs in 1 file but why would they all end up in each file as opposed to 1 sign per file? Or make it a 19 page pdf.

 

[James Burke]

They're not necessarily bloated. Users of Illy have the option as how to save .pdf files (quality). Sounds like they chose highest quality. It could also be that they set up their file with multiple artboards, hence the numerous pages in one .pdf.

 

[myront]

They're not necessarily bloated. Users of Illy have the option as how to save .pdf files (quality). Sounds like they chose highest quality. It could also be that they set up their file with multiple artboards, hence the numerous pages in one .pdf.

Thanks for the input.
Yeah, that's what I meant, "multiple artboards". Each pdf was meant to be a single 18x24 sign but each one includes all. I'm not an adobe user but as a test I "saved all" from illustrator as a pdf. It made a 28pg pdf at 17MB. Hate to say it but I guess the the designer doesn't know any better.

 

[unclebun]

I will disparage Apple computer users here by saying that Mac users seem to have no concept of file management, file type, importing, and exporting. And Illustrator's insane terminology and interface are a big part in that.

 

[Johnny Best]

Mr. Bun, I am an Apple user and I feel my concept of file management is just fine.
You’re a racist.

 

[Darko66]

The default for Illustrator is to save PDFs with "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" enabled (checked), so saving with those defaults creates a file that includes the entire Illustrator file plus the PDF. This is the case even if you specify that you only want a single page or a range of pages in the intial "Save As" dialog box. Many of the standard PDF presets have that enabled. The PDF/X-1, PDF/X-3 and PDF/X-4 do not. So, you could request PDF/X-4 files to avoid the issue.

Another issue exists when saving files as native Illustrator files (.ai). The default is to also save within the file a PDF which is usually a good thing as it allows the .ai file to be placed in InDesign, opened in Acrobat and I suppose other things. It can, however, create very large and slow saving files if the document has a lot of large photos (linked not embedded).

 

[victor bogdanov]

Why does the size matter?

 

[artifacture]

I've noticed that if I save something in RGB color space, the file is like 200k, whereas simply changing it to CMYK makes it 1.1MB which seems odd. Sure it's more data, but only 33% more.

When saving as PDF, I've been going with Illustrator Default, because High quality Print and Press Quality make ridiculously large files. I don't really understand why. My only guess is that it's saving the images without compression in those modes. Because if I save in Illustrator Default, it's including the embedded images as they were when I imported them and it might be a few MB. But High Quality print might be 30-40MB. Smallest File size downsamples all the images to 72dpi which looks terrible on my Macbook (high-res display). I have found that changing it to 150dpi seems to keep it to a reasonable file size while making the images look decent.

File size matters because many email systems limit total attachments to 30MB. At which point, you need to use Dropbox or Google Drive or similar to send the file. This is extra steps on both ends. Plus, Google Drive doesn't make the permissions of the file you're sharing clear, so almost every time I receive a file shared with it, I have to "request permission" to see it, which slows the process down as I wait for them to get to that email and authorize it. Even worse if the rep I'm working with isn't the designer who created the share and can't fix it themselves.

 

[Bobby H]

I received 19 third party pdf files each at 11MB. Each are 18x24, all vector art, black background 3-4 words and 1 vector logo. 11MB! Same file saved from Corel is 229k.
Only thing I found by opening one of the pdf's in illustrator is that it contains all 19 signs. So I copy 1 sign and paste to a new file then save as pdf, better, but still 995k. I understand the need to have all the signs in 1 file but why would they all end up in each file as opposed to 1 sign per file? Or make it a 19 page pdf.

Were the PDF files created in Adobe Illustrator?

Usually when I receive PDF files from customers and the file sizes of the PDFs are pretty big the elements inside the PDF are often pixel-based stuff rather than vector-based artwork. They mistakenly think saving a JPEG image inside a PDF container will turn that material into vector data.

The document raster effects setting within Adobe Illustrator can make a difference on file sizes of exported PDFs. Live raster-based effects, such as drop shadows, will be turned into pixel-based objects in an exported PDF. A banner design laid out at full size doesn't need a 300ppi setting, but that default setting can get baked into a large format design if care isn't taken to choose a proper ppi setting.

A document's color profile data can take up hundreds of kilobytes worth of file size space.

 

[Ronny Axelsson]

if I save something in RGB color space, the file is like 200k, whereas simply changing it to CMYK makes it 1.1MB which seems odd.

There can be a significant difference in file size, depending on whether the embedded color profile is an RGB or a CMYK profile.
The "AdobeRGB1998.icc" profile is only 560 byte (!), while the "CoatedFOGRA39.icc" CMYK-profile is 639 kB for example, and there are others that are even worse.

 

[myront]

....Were the PDF files created in Adobe Illustrator?...

Yes, confirmed that the design was from illustrator.
I did, however, fail to mention, rather forgot, that one of the artboards was a 3ftx8ft banner which did have a lot of png images (logos). That, I'm sure, increased the file size too. Also something I would not have done. That banner should have been it's own separate file.

 

[Bobby H]

Yeah, any raster-based images that are embedded into an Adobe Illustrator AI file will be stored as either uncompressed or lossless compressed data. File sizes get inflated pretty quick. Then if a PDF is saved from that artwork, and Adobe Illustrator editing capability is preserved, the file sizes can inflate further. The original AI data is appended to the PDF. Depending on the export settings used for the PDF the file may end up with 2 copies of each image, the version saved in the PDF data and the original version saved in the AI data.

 

[Boudica]

Why does the size matter?

It just does.

 

[JBurton]

Why does the size matter?

Slippery slope. Just for perspective, 11mb would require... at least 8 save icons 3.5in floppy disks. Assuming these are one off graphics, he's getting a lot every day, eventually requiring him to upgrade his cloud storage/email storage/hardware, and trust me, nobody is dropping the price of cloud storage inline with the rate that physical storage cost has plummeted, and there's nothing keeping the hosts from blowing up the cost any time they like.
Also, it's just stupid, and something I support complaining about!

It just does.

^See!


Since this is myront's thread, I'm having a similar issue from one of my salesmen. He makes pdf's, published out of corel (I think, as in not using the export function) and half the time they have at least one, potentially several, 300dpi white/transparent bmp's laid over the background. The file size isn't really impacted badly, 2.5mb that included a fountain fill, but it's just super annoying to not know exactly why.
Then there's the whole issue with the new-er corel that my old man uses, always published to pdf, but half the time it gives worthless art. And he's half retired, so when I need to produce something and he hasn't given me the cdr files, I plan on using his pdf's sent to the customer, until I find vectors like this:

 

[victor bogdanov]

It just does.

That's why yall want it as small as possible?

 

[victor bogdanov]

Slippery slope. Just for perspective, 11mb would require... at least 8 save icons 3.5in floppy disks. Assuming these are one off graphics, he's getting a lot every day, eventually requiring him to upgrade his cloud storage/email storage/hardware, and trust me, nobody is dropping the price of cloud storage inline with the rate that physical storage cost has plummeted, and there's nothing keeping the hosts from blowing up the cost any time they like.
Also, it's just stupid, and something I support complaining about!

I'm up to about 40 TB of data on my Synology Drive, 80TB total capacity with any 2 drives can fail without data loss. At my current rate will take about 3 years to fill up and then I'll have to upgrade

 

[WildWestDesigns]

It amazes me sometimes. I always try to balance out efficiency for what I'm doing and storage space.

One thing that always blows my mind is this thinking of "I have the space (or the ram), it's there to be used, regardless of the efficiency of it". Why UX of computing has actually gone down. Bloated games, bloated Electron apps, bloated files. A bloated file, isn't just about storage space on the HD, but how it also affects the viewing/editing program as well and the resources it consumes. Sometimes it can't be helped, depending on the individual case, but when it has zero reason to be done that way, is something else. Even "ease of distribution" isn't quite the thing that people think it is. Learn to tar or zip the file(s) up. And I'm all for embedding assets into my programs (or container files), but knowing when to do what is the key thing.

 

[lainey h.]

Mac user here - I agree that Illustrator leaves too much stuff when saving to pdf.
Compressing files at sites such as Ilovepdf reduces the files by a good amount if you select Recommended Compression.
For my purposes quality seems to be maintained.

 

[Russm62]

Thanks for the input.
Yeah, that's what I meant, "multiple artboards". Each pdf was meant to be a single 18x24 sign but each one includes all. I'm not an adobe user but as a test I "saved all" from illustrator as a pdf. It made a 28pg pdf at 17MB. Hate to say it but I guess the the designer doesn't know any better.

By keeping all the signs in one file, on multiple artboards, you can output any one sign .
I like doing it this way, as it keeps thinga organized and i can also share same common elements and alignment across multiple artbiards.

As for the designer nor knowing anybetter, maybe he did know better.
Sorry for saying this, but if you d9n’t understand the benefits of a certain process, don’t automatically assume that it is wrong.

 

[myront]

...Sorry for saying this, but if you d9n’t understand the benefits of a certain process, don’t automatically assume that it is wrong.

I have no problem with having them all in one file. Actually that's the way I do it too. If the designer was trying to simplify or cut down the file size by creating separate signs, great, but they should be just that, separate. You don't include all the signs in each separate pdf file.
When the link to these files was given I had to download each one individually because it was taking way too much time to zip them all. So after importing the first sign it seemed odd that the file was so big for being all vector. When imported to Corel it comes in as one sign. So I opened the file in illustrator and that's when I could see that each "individual" sign actually had all the signs (artboards) in it.