Creating and Optimizing PDF Documents

WHAT IS A PDF DOCUMENT? ..............................................................................................................................................1

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF PDFS? .......................................................................................................................1
HOW ARE PDFS USED?...........................................................................................................................................................1
WHY IS IT CRITICAL TO OPTIMIZE PDFS? .....................................................................................................................1
SCANNING FILES FOR OPTIMIZED FILE SIZE ...............................................................................................................2
QUICK-AND-DIRTY FILE OPTIMIZATION FOR EXISTING FILES ..........................................................................4
DETERMINING THE SIZE OF A DOCUMENT...................................................................................................................4

What is a PDF document?

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It is created by the program Adobe Acrobat, or by the
Acrobat plug-in (helper program) for Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Excel.

What are the advantages of PDFs?

Almost all computers can read and print PDFs.

PDFs also ensure your document will be formatted perfectly, no matter what kind of printer a
person uses.
You can put clickable bookmarks in a PDF that lets people browse to subject headings within
longer documents.

How are PDFs used?

Our most common uses for PDFs are:
posting articles (usually scanned from paper resources) for students to read online
turning PowerPoint presentations into printable documents
creating printable forms that will be distributed on the Web

Why is it critical to optimize PDFs?

Optimizing PDFs reducing the file size while keeping the print quality as good as possible is
important because large files take a long time to download. Many of our students especially students
who dont live on-campus only have access to slow dial-up modems. A 10Mb* file can take up to three
hours to download and often students must download multiple files every week.
Optimizing PDFs also reduces the load on our web servers. By keeping file sizes down, we prevent server
crashes and delay the need to purchase additional servers to keep up with traffic.
A good target size for PDFs is 35-50Kb per page meaning a 10 page document would be under 500Kb
or 0.5 Mb. It is unlikely that you can get an existing PDF down to this size without re-scanning it;
however, you can reduce its file size significantly using the simple technique below.

* Be sure to note if the size of your file is in megabytes (Mb) or kilobytes (Kb). 1Mb = 1000 Kb so a 1.5Mb file is
much larger than a 500Kb file.
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Creating and Optimizing PDF Documents

Scanning files for optimized file size
1) Install Acrobat 6.0 on a computer connected to a scanner. It is worth the extra money to upgrade to
version 6.0 for the ease of file optimization. ($25 from MStores)
2) Open Acrobat.
3) Click File Create PDF From Scanner.

Set your options to match this dialog box and click SCAN:

This will list

your scanner
may be
different from
the one listed
here.

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Creating and Optimizing PDF Documents

4) Every scanner seems to use different scanning software! Your scanner may not have the exact
features shown below, but it should have something similar.
5) When the dialog for your scanner comes up, use the following settings as a starting point.
a) Resolution: 300dpi
b) Color settings: Black and White. You can also try Shades of Gray or Grayscale sometimes
this gives a smaller file size.
c) Lighten the document so you cant see any bleed through text and so the page background is
white, not gray.
NOTE: Scanners differ greatly. Using these settings on your scanner may not give the best
(smallest) results.
TRY NUMEROUS OPTIONS scanners are temperamental and logical settings may not
yield the best results. For example, on some scanners, 300dpi (a higher resolution/print
quality) yields SMALLER files than 150dpi (poorer resolution/print quality).

On some scanners, re-selecting the resolution will improve the results. That is, if your dialog
box automatically says Resolution: 300dpi and you open the drop-down menu and re-select
Resolution: 300dpi, you will get a smaller final file than if you accept the default setting.
Make note of the settings that work best on your scanner and use them in the future.
6) After previewing the document, Accept the document or Send to Acrobat.
7) Youll be given the choice to scan more pages or to be done scanning.
8) In Acrobat, choose File Menu Save.
a) Save it with a logical name, e.g., author and abbreviated title.
b) Try to keep it under 20 characters.
c) DO NOT put any spaces in the file name. This can cause downloading problems.
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Creating and Optimizing PDF Documents

Quick-and-dirty file optimization for existing files
This technique will reduce the size of existing PDF files. It yields dramatic results often cutting large
file sized by 1/2 to 2/3 but scanning images properly in the first place yields even better results. I only
recommend using this technique for things youve already scanned for new documents, follow the
instructions on pages 2-3.
1) Install Acrobat 6.0 if you are not using it already. It is
worth the extra money (about $25) to upgrade to 6.0 for
the ease of file optimization.
2) Open an existing PDF file.
3) Choose Reduce File Size from the File menu.
4) This will automatically reduce your file size. Often it can
shrink files by 80% with one click.

Determining the size of a document

From within Acrobat, you can check the size of a file by
choosing Document Properties from the File Menu.
From there, click the
Description button on
the left and the file size
will be listed toward the
bottom.
Remember: 1Mb = 1000Kb, so 500KB is half the size of 1Mb

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