PDF Forms File Size are bigger than expected

[Magus069]

Hi, I seem to have some issue with the file size of my PDF forms.

I have xfa forms created on Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES2 9.0.0.2.20120627, and they're all at least 1Mb big which is pretty big for a xfa form.

When I initially create a xfa form, it is around 11-12Kb, when I add a bit of objects in the form it doesn't get too big, around 30-90Kb, but when I'm almost finished my forms it always end up with 1Mb of data.

I've thought maybe it is because I'm pasting some objects already created from another form to a new one, but that is not the case.

Before that, I checked out the XML source to see if there's anything suspicious about the forms and I've created if I could find anything about the size of my PDFs.

I've seen my biggest form which have 15k lines of XML coding and is 1.386Mb and another one with only 5k lines of XML coding and is 1.303Mb.

So the ratio here is 10k XML coding equals 83Kb. A new blank form, is around 136 XML coding and equals 10Kb.

When I see other forms which I haven't created, from other sources, they are around 300-600Kb...

Now I'm wondering what could be the reason why my forms are so much bigger.

Could it be because I'm not coding on the server-side?

Could it be because of my Script Objects?

Or because I'm missing something about the xfa forms?

Or, maybe because I ain't using Action Builder?

Or that is what I think, the more I use different functions the more it gets bigger, maybe because of the reference objects to use those functions?

If anyone knows what is the main reason for a XFA PDF Form to size-up, I would like to know.

Thanks

[radzmar · Accepted solution]

Hi,

the reasons for big files generally are embedded fonts and images.

In forms with default fonts like Arial or Myriad Pro it doesn't make sense to embed the fonts as Reader/Acrobat have this fonts already and don't need it to be embedded.

Only Arial needs about 450KB in a form.

If you use images then don't embed them, because this means they get stored as base64-encoded string into the XML source instead of a flate-encoded stream into the PDF.

Base64 is very clumsy and needs more space.

[Magus069]

Thank you beaucoup!

There's a huge difference, I had Brush Script MT + Arial in some of my forms and once I changed it all for Myriad Pro it dropped from 1254 Kb to 398 Kb.

Thanks for the advice, I'm glad to see that is only the font which is making the difference!

Thanks again.