Illustrator Help please

[Steve G.]

I have cs2. I'm a novice with illy and photo shop. I've been using corel since 95 and Flexi and Ilustrator since 2002. I usually use illy just when i have to, but would like to get it down someday. Point is, I like it, just not well versed.

Anyhow, my problem is:
I open a 5MB pdf (from another designer), in Illustrator. I then copy vector text (585KB) into the file. When i save only, back to pdf, it generates a 75mb file. If i save as an ai it is 30 mb. Shouldn't it now a be a 5.59 mb file?
I obviouly am missing some settings. I've googled it and read the help for a long time. I'm feeling like a moron.

thanks in advance for any help.

steve

 

[petepaz]

never heard of that one
try doing "save as" and see what settings it gives you

 

[Steve G.]

Did save as "pdf". lots of settings. Nothing that's obvious to me.
I checked smallest file size and it saves at 732kb. now too small.
I'll keep playing with the settings, i'd jut like it to stay the way it was when i opened it. I was hopeing it was something common.. thanks

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Change your quality settings to "smallest file size" when you save the .pdf, see if that helps. If not, try replacing the outlined text with text that is still text if you can. With pdfs, if there is alot of text, you're better off leaving it as text and not converting it to outlines. Outlines is a bunch of vector shapes, the more text, the more detailed and complicated the file. Text is text and makes a tremendously smaller file.

If you are using the pdf for printing, or to send to someone else to open in Illustrator and font conversion may be an issue, then you're stuck with a big file with outlined text. If you're printing, just save the file as an .eps and forget pdfs altogether, and eps gives you the same thing, usually in a smaller file size and often with less issues in the RIP.

 

[oldgoatroper]

Is there a raster image in the file, besides the text?

 

[J Hill Designs]

It may be saving a tiff preview of it...

 

[Steve G.]

yes there is a raster, in the original, the one that is 5 mb. I'm adding vector logo single color / layer.

How do i identify if it's saving the tiff preview

If i add the 585 kb vector then save as an ai it is also 75 mb. What setting would change a 5 mb vector and raster pdf to a 75 mb ai ?

thanks again

 

[oldgoatroper]

yes there is a raster, in the original, the one that is 5 mb. I'm adding vector logo single color / layer.

How do i identify if it's saving the tiff preview

If i add the 585 kb vector then save as an ai it is also 75 mb. What setting would change a 5 mb vector and raster pdf to a 75 mb ai ?

thanks again

Here's an idea...

If the raster image in the original PDF was saved with heavy JPG compression, then opened with Irritator, then saved with (and you'll have to check your settings, here) a non-lossy compression such as LZW or no compression at all, then that could account for the mushrooming file size.

To test this, open your original PDF with Illy, then save as a different filename without making any changes to the layout. If the filesize is dramatically different, then the raster settings are probably responsible.

 

[longbeachmichael]

if you have acrobat full version and the pdf print driver installed, you can print to a pdf and usually get a much smaller file size. i have had 100mb .eps files that when printed to a pdf, the size would be under 2mb.

 

[oldgoatroper]

if you have acrobat full version and the pdf print driver installed, you can print to a pdf and usually get a much smaller file size. i have had 100mb .eps files that when printed to a pdf, the size would be under 2mb.

That usually means you're losing quality somewhere. Check your PDF settings for raster image downsampling and compression.

 

[longbeachmichael]

i choose the high quality print settings, it does do strange things to raster images though, like breaking them up into slices, etc. but other than that, no loss of quality.
at first i thought so, but i've done comparisons between the 100mb eps and the 2mb pdf and they were identical.

 

[javila]

Your pdf settings are probably upsampling any raster data in the file. Sift through the settings and find the "resample" section and set everything to "do not resample".