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Compress form

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Level 2

I have an Adobe PDF fillable form form that is 37.8 MB that I created with LiveCycle Designer ES. When uploaded to the web, the form takes a very very long time to open. I suspect that it is the file size. I've tried to save as a reduced size pdf and also have tried to save as an optimized pdf. These steps only reduced the size on the disk to 14.4 MB still a large document. When I optimized it, the document overhead was 98% of it. I took the advice on some forums to check off the private user data box (or something like that) in one of the windows in the optimize section, but still a large file. I've tried everything. Any suggestion to reduce the size of this PDF form?

8 Replies

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Level 10

Hi,

That is a large file.

There are a couple of things:

  • Also an earlier version of LC Designer (I can't remember which version) added multiple copies of a StyleID line thousands of times, this caused the file size to increase. If you look in the XML Source tab you are looking for blocks of "<?templateDesigner StyleID aped3?>" or similar. This was fixed in a service pack and certainly in LC Designer ES2. If your form is opened in the newer version it automatically gets rid of the extra lines of code. Again I am not sure which version this was corrected.
  • If you have images in the form then UNTICK Embed Image Data, as embedding images will bloat the file size.
  • Do not embed fonts (see File > Form Properties > Save options tab) and use efficient fonts such as Myriad Pro, which already comes installed in Acrobat and Reader.

Visit John Brinkman's blog for tips on reducing file size:

http://blogs.adobe.com/formfeed/2011/05/fonts-are-big.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/formfeed/2010/09/xdp-size-matters.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/formfeed/2009/11/linked_vs_embedded_template_im.html

Hope that helps,

Niall

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Level 2

Thanks for your reply re my compression issue. I have LiveCycle ES2 btw. I have no embedded fonts. I tried to look for the Embed Image Data box to untick, as you suggested, but cannot locate it in the Optimize window. Is it somewhere else?

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Level 10

Hi,

All of the optimising I have recommended is carried our in Designer and not in Acrobat. This is the best approach as you are tackling the issues at source.

Try opening the form in Designer and see how you get on.

Niall

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Level 2

Hello Niall:

Thanks. Yes, I am working in Designer to try to reduce the size of this 17 page form. Most of the fields that I have are text fields. I went into the objects pallette, but didnt see any embed related box. Since its a blank form, would it be possible for me to send it to you at your private email to take a look?

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Level 10

Hi,

If you upload it to Acrobat.com; publish it; and then send me a private message with the link.

I will try and have a look when I can.

Niall

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Level 10

Okay,

I have the form and see the issue.

It is a 19-page form that was created in Word or in another application and exported to PDF. You then imported this into Designer, probably selecting "import as artwork". This means that each of the 19 pages is made up of a 2Mb image with fields overlaid.

Create a form by importing an existing document can lead to problems. For example while in Designer I can see about three fonts are used, however when I look in Acrobat there are many more fonts, which appear to be assoiated with hidden text.

I have tried to Optimize the form in Acrobat, but without much success.

I think that you will have difficulty getting the file size down. I would be inclined to create the form within Designer. You could copy all of your fields and paste them into a new Designer form. You would then need to create the captions and the static text. This would result in a much smaller file size.

Hope that is of some small help,

Niall

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Level 2

Wow! Thank you very much for taking the time to look at the document. I'm

impressed at how you were able to discern the problem. You've been of much

help. I'm rather new at form creation. I didn't realize that you could

create static text from scratch in Adobe (I always thought it was not a text

editor), so went the route of importing a Word document.

If I may ask, you mentioned that you wouldn't have created the form in

Designer. Is there another software problem or approach that you would have

used to create something like this?

Thanks and Best,

Lisa

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Level 10

Hi Lisa,

Sorry, I meant to say that I would not create a form by importing a Word document into Designer.

I would definitely recommend Designer to create forms. In particular where you start with a blank page in Designer.

Test with just one page from your existing form for starters.

Open Designer and start a blank form. Open your existing form and copy all of the objects on page1 and paste into your new form. You should use the caption for each of these objects. You can control the caption from a number of palettes. See Object>Field, Font, Paragraph, and Layout palettes for various settings.

If you go to Object Library, you will see a Text object. If you drag this onto the page, you can type in static text.

Have a look at some examples at Code Solutions at http://www.assuredynamics.com.

Hope that helps,

Niall