"Why Optimize?"

By Leah Lothringer
PDF Store Support Team
Issue 12 for 2006

The proliferation of the PDF document format can largely be attributed to its usage on the Web. PDF has been praised for many attributes, one of them being its efficiency. Why then do so many PDF documents on the Web take so long to load? Is there something that can be done about this?

Despite its usage on the Web, PDF documents are not typically authored specifically for placement online. They’re designed for high quality print output, which is frustrating for users who do not have any need for bandwidth-heavy fonts and images that have not been optimized. Performing optimization on your PDF documents is simple and will save your end users a lot of time.

Adobe’s PDF Optimizer is included with the full version of Acrobat and offers extensive functionality – the image optimization is particularly impressive.

For users who do not own Acrobat, Nitro PDF Professional can rapidly remove many different unwanted objects in a PDF file as well as compress images, resulting in a significantly smaller file size. You may also linearize your PDF for faster viewing on the web – linearization refers to structuring the document in such a way that the first page will be displayed to a user while the rest of the file is still downloading.

PDF Enhancer goes further with a complete set of optimization techniques. This product in particular is designed to perform PDF file size reduction, without making sacrifices, such as loss of image quality.

PDF print drivers such as Jaws PDF Creator offer some optimization features. Having converted to/created a PDF, users can then linearize and shrink resultant files.

There are many powerful optimization products on offer, for desktop users as well as print-production professionals and developers. Please visit the PDF Prepress & PDF Print section at PDF Store.