Making a PDF for my printer

[HarrieJ]

Although not an experienced user of scribus 1.4.7, I manage to make a well-readable magazine for some time. In scribus, my 24-page full colour magazine is about 400 Kb. Saved as PDF it is 237 Mb. Quite a difference. My printshop receives the PDF and works it in his printing process, split into pages. Every page is suddenly between 100 and 140 MB. It seems that every page carries a lot of document data. (?)
If I myself save per page that is much less. Every page from 1 MB to 40 MB, depending on the number of photos I use.
Does anyone know why and if I am doing something wrong?
Thanks in advance.

HarrieJ

[Nermander]

The 400 kB Scribus file does not contain any images, those are linked.

What resolution do your images have? If you are not scaling and cropping them before inserting them your PDF may contain a lot of data that doesn't show in the final print. For example if you "crop" an image in Scribus by making the image frame smaller than the image, the full image will still be exported to the PDF (as far as I know).

If your images have high resolution, you can tell Scribus to downsample.

Note that also text from Scribus usually case very large PDF, because of the way Scribus places the text on the page.

Embedded fonts can be 10-20 MB each.

[HarrieJ]

Thanks Nermander.
My images usually vary from 500Kb to 5 MB. I get them in a frame and let scribus fit it in that frame. So I never scaled or cropped them before.
I also never downsampled an image.
I sure will try all you suggested to find out if this will make my printshop a bit happy. They use a very large printing machine. From PC the pages go in, at the end the magazines come out, folded, stapled and all with the right adresses on it.
So they would be very glad to have this job a bit easier on the "PC-side".
Thanks

HarrieJ

[Nermander]

There is setting to downsample in the PDF export dialog (it's called Maximum image resolution), but you will get better quality of you downsample the images before inserting into Scribus. (But then you need to do the math first.)

Ask the printer what maximum resolution they recommend (it depends on the printer, no use with a resolution the printer cannot utilize).

[mnawij]

Hi HarrieJ,

Small problem, I would need to know your printers complete workflow and which applications they are using.  I think you said that you are giving individual pages to your printer correct? When I receive files from clients, sometimes I impose/place the pages in InDesign and then re-write the pdf files to a new pdf with printers marks.  Both InDesign and Photoshop can add anywhere from 30% to 100% to the pdf file size when doing this.  Then I send the pdf files to a program called Fiery Command Workstation for imposition and printing on my digital press.  This program also increases the pdf file size when I create 'press ready' pdfs for my customer to review as this is the file that I will be printing from.  As you can see it might not be on your end at all...  Without actually seeing your finished pdf files from Scribus and maybe even your Scribus files also and knowing what workflow/applications your printer uses, this is a complicated question :-) I hope I did not confuse you, basically it might not be a Scribus problem.  Outlining the fonts could or could not reduce the pdf size and I agree with the other posters, resizing the photo to size at resolution that you will be using could also help in the file sizes.

Cheers!

mnawij

[HarrieJ]

Thanks all,

I used to export to PDF and make one document in PDF, 24 pages. Last month I asked my printshop how they they work and learned that they make seperate pages using Adobe Acrobat Pro. That way they had 24 files from about 130 MB each.
Since now I export to PDF but make it all seperate pages with Scribus. And have 24 files from 1 to 40 MB. My printshop has received them 2 days ago and said it's allright now. My magazine is printed and on its way to my readers.

But I learned thanks to you that scribus does not insert pictures but only links to them. And I knew that I could make PDF from each page but never askes my printshop how they would have the PDF. So I sended it always in one big PDF.
In this new way it is better now. I now know he gladly accepts the 24 files and make the magazine much easier.

Thanks you all. Every time I learn more about Scribus.  Perfect programm

HarrieJ