FYI: Fonts, Sub-Setting, File Size Reduction and Optimizer. Part 1

[Garrett_Cobarr@adobeforums.com]

I wanted to share the outcome of some tests I ran to help me make better choices when using fonts in Acrobat PDFs. The purpose of the tests were to see how various options affected size of the final PDF file in regards to the use of fonts.

There were expected patterns, some interesting info and some nasty surprises.

All of these tests were done with InDesign CS (3.0), Acrobat Pro 6.0.2 on a Mac G4 1 gig running Mac OS 10.2.8. It would be great if someone with a Windows machine ran a similar test matrix for comparison. The font used was Adobe's Sanvito-Roman because it has the Permission bits to embed as form field font as well as a text font, this allows a better comparison.

All these files were a single page, no profiles, black & white, exported from InDesign for Acrobat 6 with no interactive elements or layers, 72 DPI, compression was JPEG 2000 set to Medium. Font sub-setting was set to 100%.

1. The first file had no fonts, control comparison.
2. The next file had the capital characters: A-H.
3. Just the 26 capital letters: A-Z.
4. Capital letters plus small case: A-Z and a-z.
5. Capital, small case, numbers and basic punctuation: A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and .,!?.
6. The last example simply doubled all the characters of example 5.

The resulting PDF Sizes from InDesign alone.

1.NO FONTS.pdf 4 KB
2.CAPS A-H.pdf 8 KB
3.CAPS.pdf 12 KB
4.CAPS & SML.pdf 16 KB
5.CAPS & SML & #.pdf 20 KB
6.CAPS & SML & # Double.pdf 20 KB

These results were obtained by running the previous through Acrobat's menu, File > Reduce File Size...

1.NO FONTS.pdf 8 KB
2.CAPS A-H.pdf 12 KB
3.CAPS.pdf 12 KB
4.CAPS & SML.pdf 16 KB
5.CAPS & SML & #.pdf 20 KB
6.CAPS & SML & # Double.pdf 20 KB

For some reason Reduce File Size... added 4 KB to examples 1 and 3 and had no effect on the others. Anybody have some ideas about that? Also: reviewing the Documents Properties > Fonts showed Sanvito-Roman had been sub-setted for all files except "1.NO FONTS.pdf "

These results were obtained by opening the example "1.NO FONTS.pdf" in Acrobat and creating one form field whose type was text, set to multiline and centered.

1.NO FONTS.pdf 44 KB
2.CAPS A-H.pdf 44 KB
3.CAPS.pdf 44 KB
4.CAPS & SML.pdf 44 KB
5.CAPS & SML & #.pdf 44 KB
6.CAPS & SML & # Double.pdf 44 KB

Here there are some surprises: adding the textless field alone provided an additional 40 KB, the type and amount characters in the form field had no effect on size. Also: reviewing the Documents Properties > Fonts showed Sanvito-Roman had been fully embedded for all files except "1.NO FONTS.pdf "

These results were obtained by opening the example "1.NO FONTS.pdf" in Acrobat and creating one form field whose type was text, set to multiline and centered. I then ran the PDFs through Acrobat's Reduce File Size...

1.NO FONTS.pdf 44 KB
2.CAPS A-H.pdf 44 KB
3.CAPS.pdf 44 KB
4.CAPS & SML.pdf 44 KB
5.CAPS & SML & #.pdf 44 KB
6.CAPS & SML & # Double.pdf 44 KB

Reduce File Size... had absolutely no effect on the size of the PDFs.

[Guy_Smiley@adobeforums.com]

[email]Garrett_Cobarr@adobeforums.com[/email] wrote in
news:3bb4ea47.-1@webx.la2eafNXanI:

> Here there are some surprises: adding the textless field alone
> provided an additional 40 KB, the type and amount characters in
> the form field had no effect on size.

This is not at all surprising. In order to use a font in a text field,
the entire font must be embedded.

[Garrett_Cobarr@adobeforums.com]

Guy, as an interface issue it is not surprising because you could not anticipate the user's entries.

What is surprising is that the 40 KB is added before you actually assign a font.

[Thomas_Phinney@adobeforums.com]

Are you sure no font was assigned? Maybe something by default?

T

[Garrett_Cobarr@adobeforums.com]

Thomas, double and triple sure. I closed the document and reopened it. Checked with the cursor and selected all, nothing. And finally used the Document Properties... > Fonts, no fonts installed.