UFO Believer Magazine

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GarryP

#15
A reduction from over 6MB to under 2MB is very good. Your readers will appreciate it. They might not know (or care) about the size difference but they'll be pleased that they can download it quickly. A happy reader is more likely to come back for the next issue.

Using a separate tool to compress a PDF can be useful but sometimes they only reduce the DPI of the images which is what Scribus lets you do anyway. But if it's free then why not give it a try. (OSX Users: You can use Preview to try and reduce the size of a PDF. Open the PDF in Preview, go to menu "File -> Export", open the Quartz Filter drop-down and select "Reduce File Size".)

IMPORTANT NOTE: For anyone thinking about using a free online PDF compressor/reducer: Make sure you read the terms and conditions very carefully. Make sure that (a) you retain copyright of both the original and compressed documents, and (b) the site will not retain a copy of either document. Some of these sites may take liberties with what you send them so be careful. If you have any doubts, don't send them anything.

Generally, "PDF Export -> Color -> Output Intended For : Printer" should only be used if you are printing - or getting something printed - on a machine that needs/prefers CMYK separation. "Output Intended For : Screen/Web" should normally be used if you're not getting something professionally printed, but most print shops will be fine with it anyway. Either way, it's best to check with your manual or print shop to see what's best. Anything you're digitally distributing for a general readership will probably be fine with "Screen/Web".

Setting a maximum image resolution to 72DPI will be, for most purposes, just fine. However, 144DPI might be preferable if you think a lot of your readers may be using large/hi-res displays, or if you think they'll be zooming into what's on the page (e.g. for detailed maps or images that warrant a bit of extra investigation). You can always control this on an image-by-image basis yourself by using GIMP (or a similar package) to resize the image manually before importing into Scribus. This can be a bit tricky at first however so making Scribus do it for you at a document level is easier.

When you have to use an image with transparency it might be worth thinking about how much of the image you want to see. For instance, the "steam + escape rocket" actually only covers a small area of the top-middle of the page. Cropping it in GIMP to be just the bit you need - and then moving the image frame as necessary - might further reduce file size. Similarly, the tip of the escape rocket only covers a tiny bit of the "F" so the actual image needed there should be very small. It's worth mentioning that this sort of optimisation should only really be done once the design has been finalised.

On top of this, there's another option. Once you have the cover design finalised:
* Save the cover page to a new file (so you have a copy to go back to if needed);
* Open the new file and export the page as an image (as JPG, you don't need a transparency);
* Go back to the original document;
* Remove everything from the cover page (remember that you have a backup);
* Add an image frame to cover the whole page;
* Import the image exported from the cover page document.

This way you only have one image on the page which covers the same physical area but will be smaller in size than all the original images combined. If you need to change the cover then open the cover page document, make the changes, then re-export and Scribus will pick-up the change automatically (as long as you use the same export file name). It's a bit more work but it might make a big difference on covers that have a lot of "overlaps". The downside of this is that the text becomes rasterised so will not scale up as nicely as it would otherwise do. You've just got to decide what is best for you (you might be able to keep some of the text in Scribus, it depends on the design).

Anyway, I'll be interested in hearing about how you get on with my hanging quotes suggestion. There's a chance that you could come up with a much better idea while you are experimenting.

Nermander

Quote from: steven8 on December 23, 2016, 05:08:42 AM
At the moment, I can not really justify paying for a website, so download speeds are at the mercy of the Free Webs site. 

One way to improve download speeds would be to distribute it using Bittorrent instead of web download.

The Norwegian public broadcasting company does that with many of their own productions.
https://nrkbeta.no/bittorrent/

steven8

2 quick things, because I have to head to work:

1) I tried replacing the cover with just a jpeg image that was very small in size, and it actually made a larger PDF file

2) I love the hanging indent solution.  I found that with different fonts you meed to tweak the indent variation.  Excellent workaround, though!
Scribus 1.6.0 Stable
Windows 11

GarryP

1. Strange. Not sure why that's happened.

It can sometimes happen if you go from using multiple "views" of the same image (same image in different frames), which Scribus treats as one image, to using multiple "image parts" (different image files showing parts of the same image).

It depends on the image files and exactly what you're doing with them really. Too many possibilities to say without seeing. If that technique doesn't work for this document then just go back to doing what you were doing previously.

2. If you like the work-around then it sounds like it's what you need until Scribus can handle this sort of thing properly itself. Always good to know when something works for someone else.

steven8

Yeah, it was weird.  I truly expected the PDF file to be smaller.  You never can tell.  Anyway, thanks so much for all your help.  It's always good to get the straight dope from an expert.

Happy New Year!!
Scribus 1.6.0 Stable
Windows 11

steven8

I have made a very small change to the cover of the second issue, but I think it makes a world of difference.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Scribus 1.6.0 Stable
Windows 11

utnik

hi steven

'BELIEVERS' on top of the smoke is much better.
i'm not sure about the heavier outline and shadow by 'UFO'...

utnik