Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 2/6/2009

Question
QUESTION: I have carton artwork that is an eps in illustrator and I need to supply a PDF to my client Acrobat 5 1.4 .  If I save from Illustrator the PDF produced is about 5 meg but if I pull the eps into Indesign create a postcript and distill the file I can greatly reduce the file size.  Is this normal?  I would rather save alot of time and produce the files direct from Illustrator if I can.

ANSWER: Hi Russel,

You should be using the same presets with Illustrator and InDesign. Im guessing that you are currently using the Illustrator default when saving from AI. Try using High Quality or Press Quality for the preset and see how it goes.

The other thing is that .eps files do some compression that makes your original resource file smaller to begin with than a normal Illustrator file.

Thanks

Kevin




---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I am using the same settings for both programs.  They are both set up for press quality with an image downsample to 300 dpi for images above 450 dpi and set up for 2400 dpi for the resolution.  Both programs are saving to Acrobat 5 1.4 but saving one file from illustrator makes the PDF 8.2 and creating a page in Indesign outputting a PS file to be distilled using acrobat Distiller makes the file only 4.2 meg.  This is not just on one particular job I have tried it with several different types.  I have also tried exporting files as a PDF from Indesign and this produces the same result as printing a postcript from this program, its just saving as a PDF from illustrator that increases the size.

Answer
Hi Russel,

The answer is in how you are creating the PDF. From InDesign, the preferred and standard method is to export Adobe PDF, not creating a Postscript and distilling. Creating a Postscript again gives you a smaller starting file size when you distill. This is the same thing as importing an AI file into InDesign.

When the file size you start with is smaller, the PDF will be smaller. A native AI file open in Illustrator is larger in file size than when it is brought into InDesign (InDesign treats it like a pdf, which is an already compressed image).

If size is critical, and it sounds like it is, your best bet is to keep doing it through InDesign. I know its an extra step, but exporting out of AI will always give you a larger file size, unless you want to sacrifice image quality.

Thanks

Kevin