Expert: Amy - 10/2/2007

Question
We had Illustrator 10 and upgraded to CS2 in order to be able to use the multi-page pdf feature. We create an artboard and then set it up to be a series of 8.5 x 11 pages. Then we link a bunch of pictures and put in some art. When we did this in v 10 the files were manageable. When we do this in CS2 the files are huge!!! here's a comparison: with the same images and art in each file -- v10 file size = 323KB, CS2 file size = 827,985 KB!!  Then the pdf was also too large at 15,987 KB and took hours to create. We tried importing the art and text as a linked file and got the pdf to 4,578KB, but it still took hours to create it. The computer is acting really slow too and takes up a lot of RAM.  We were very happy working with v10, we just wanted to be able to create the multi-page pdf in order to email it. Any ideas for a solution to file size and RAM issues?

Answer
Hi Janet,

Sorry to keep you waiting but this is a tough one. I recently read a post from someone at the adobe forums about the topic but there were no answers posted yet. The forums are "under construction" so I can't search for that post.

Everything that I can think of would make very minor improvements.

The one thing that I've seen dramatically increase file size is when there is legacy text in the document. Type > Legacy Text > Update All Legacy Text will take care of that.

I hope you can bear with me... I've been searching boards for answers or suggestions but haven't found any. But I *do* know that it is a documented issue.

-Amy