Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 6/30/2011

Question
Hello

I am doing some designs in Illustrator CS4 and saving them as PDF.  can you tell me how to make these PDF's as small as possible without losing quality so they can be sent via email in a reasonable file size.

Many thanks for your help

Answer
Hi Celine,

This is tricky. Size and quality usually do not go hand in hand. First try using the different presets available in the PDF dialog box. High Quality is the smallest preset that will give you adequate size but still be printable. Smallest file size is meant only for on-screen viewing and not printing, but it works great for email and still looks good at 100%.

If this need to print and still email, you may have to start looking at the compression settings, however, I would suggest trying the presets first to see what kind of size you get. Using compression can lead to damage to your images.

Thanks

Kevin