When I got my Windows 10 computer late in 2021, I saw that Windows
included Microsoft Print to PDF, so I didn't bother installing
CutePDF, which I use on my Windows 8.1 laptop.

But since then, I've noticed that Microsoft print to PDF creates
ridiculously large files. A four-page all-text Web page is several
MB, for instance. I delved into the settings, and there's a setting
for print-to-file quality. Hooray, thought I, I'll just set it to
lower quality, which will still be fine for all my files that are
read on screen. But the print quality setting has only one choice:
600 DPI! That seems particularly inane.

<https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/dont-use-the-microsoft- print-to-pdf-printer.86229/> says DPI can't be changed, and that
color/B&W is set to color, which also can't be changed. No wonder the
files are big!

Googling for
"Microsoft print to PDF" change dpi
turned up a bunch of software programs, but nothing native to
Windows. If I'm going to install something third party it may as well
be one I'm familiar with.

So it's back to CutePDF for me.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

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Stan Brown wrote:

So it's back to CutePDF for me.

Nothing wrong with CutePDF.
And yes, I saw that you don't want to install a PDF shrinker.

Since I already have the Adobe Acrobat Writer on Windows (because it's one
of the only programs which both edits PDFs and creates a PDF of a web
site), I use the shrinking option which generally cuts a PDF down to about
half the bytes (give or take).

Anyway, as added value, here's a list from this ng from a long time ago.

All checked functionality can be found for free on Windows.
[x] Fast PDF reader: (Sumatra PDF freeware)
[x] Archive sites (wkhtmltopdf freeware, Acrobat payware)
[x] Add or concatonate pages (pdftk freeware, acrobat payware)
[x] Remove pages (pdfsam freeware, pdftk freeware)
[x] Rotate pages (Acrobat Reader freeware)
[x] Renumber pages (Acrobat Reader freeware)
[x] Remove restrictions (Ghostscript/Ghostview freeware)
[x] Merge PDFs (pdfsam freeware, pdftk freeware)
[x] Extract images (PDF Exchange Viewer freeware)
[x] Edit PDF existing text (Acrobat commenting freeware, Acrobat payware)
[x] Print sans username in the properties (Libre Office Writer)
[_] Print book format PDF (FinePrint payware)
[x] Tile PDFs (i.e., to print large posters) (Posterazor freeware)
[x] Create PDF new text (Irfanview or Paint.NET freeware plugins + Ghostscript freeware)

I just realized "shrink pdf file size" isn't on that list.
It needs to be added.

Anyone know of freeware expressly to shrink PDF file sizes?
[_] Shrink PDF file size (Adobe Acrobat Writer payware)

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Andy Burnelli <nospam@nospam.net> wrote:
...

I just realized "shrink pdf file size" isn't on that list.
It needs to be added.

Anyone know of freeware expressly to shrink PDF file sizes?
[_] Shrink PDF file size (Adobe Acrobat Writer payware)

https://reducepdfsize.com/ (old, but works for me)
--
"I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another." --Romans 15:14. Last week's 5" heavy cold rain left a mess like leaks, craziness, etc. More 2 come tho. :( Lots
of updated apps.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

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On 2/28/2023 8:05 PM, Stan Brown wrote:

When I got my Windows 10 computer late in 2021, I saw that Windows
included Microsoft Print to PDF, so I didn't bother installing
CutePDF, which I use on my Windows 8.1 laptop.

But since then, I've noticed that Microsoft print to PDF creates
ridiculously large files. A four-page all-text Web page is several
MB, for instance. I delved into the settings, and there's a setting
for print-to-file quality. Hooray, thought I, I'll just set it to
lower quality, which will still be fine for all my files that are
read on screen. But the print quality setting has only one choice:
600 DPI! That seems particularly inane.

<https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/dont-use-the-microsoft- print-to-pdf-printer.86229/> says DPI can't be changed, and that
color/B&W is set to color, which also can't be changed. No wonder the
files are big!

Googling for
"Microsoft print to PDF" change dpi
turned up a bunch of software programs, but nothing native to
Windows. If I'm going to install something third party it may as well
be one I'm familiar with.

So it's back to CutePDF for me.

I have been happily using PDFCreator for a few decades.
The only tinkering I have done with it: After you install it, each of
your pdf files will show a big icon on the desktop which I find
distracting and ugly--so I reassign a more modest icon for pdf files.

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VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote:

Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:

When I got my Windows 10 computer late in 2021, I saw that Windows
included Microsoft Print to PDF, so I didn't bother installing
CutePDF, which I use on my Windows 8.1 laptop.

But since then, I've noticed that Microsoft print to PDF creates
ridiculously large files. A four-page all-text Web page is several
MB, for instance. I delved into the settings, and there's a setting
for print-to-file quality. Hooray, thought I, I'll just set it to
lower quality, which will still be fine for all my files that are
read on screen. But the print quality setting has only one choice:
600 DPI! That seems particularly inane.

<https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/dont-use-the-microsoft-
print-to-pdf-printer.86229/> says DPI can't be changed, and that
color/B&W is set to color, which also can't be changed. No wonder the
files are big!

Googling for
"Microsoft print to PDF" change dpi
turned up a bunch of software programs, but nothing native to
Windows. If I'm going to install something third party it may as well
be one I'm familiar with.

So it's back to CutePDF for me.

I did a search using Startpage. I printed the web page. Results I got:

- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, color): 970 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, color): 75 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, no color): 542 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, no color): 75 KB

- Microsoft to PDF (original, color): 1.77 MB
- Microsoft to PDF (simplified, color): 198 KB
(no choice to remove color; i.e., no black & white mode)

I can't remember ever using Microsoft [print] to PDF other than perhaps
to test it after doing a fresh install of Windows 10, and after all the tweaks to Windows 10. There was some Microsoft XPS printer that
Microsoft was trying to compete against Adobe's PDF format, but that was
a failure, and I removed that printer. I don't see a reason to keep Microsoft [print] to PDF, either.

Free 3rd-party solutions are so much better than the uber-basic stuff Microsoft bundles in Windows.

Oh, I didn't test output .pdf file sizes using Save to PDF included in
web browsers (i.e., Firefox, Edge/Chrome, Chrome). I decided to test
just one: Firefox's Save to PDF. That also disables the color mode
option, so I could only test using original or simplified levels of
content. What I got was:

Firefox Save to PDF (original): 256 KB
Firefox Save to PDF (simplified): 90 KB

I didn't bother reviewing the contents of the various PDFs to see what
content was missing (simplified tosses a lot away), or what was
different.

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Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:

When I got my Windows 10 computer late in 2021, I saw that Windows
included Microsoft Print to PDF, so I didn't bother installing
CutePDF, which I use on my Windows 8.1 laptop.

But since then, I've noticed that Microsoft print to PDF creates
ridiculously large files. A four-page all-text Web page is several
MB, for instance. I delved into the settings, and there's a setting
for print-to-file quality. Hooray, thought I, I'll just set it to
lower quality, which will still be fine for all my files that are
read on screen. But the print quality setting has only one choice:
600 DPI! That seems particularly inane.

<https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/dont-use-the-microsoft- print-to-pdf-printer.86229/> says DPI can't be changed, and that
color/B&W is set to color, which also can't be changed. No wonder the
files are big!

Googling for
"Microsoft print to PDF" change dpi
turned up a bunch of software programs, but nothing native to
Windows. If I'm going to install something third party it may as well
be one I'm familiar with.

So it's back to CutePDF for me.

I did a search using Startpage. I printed the web page. Results I got:

- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, color): 970 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, color): 75 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, no color): 542 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, no color): 75 KB

- Microsoft to PDF (original, color): 1.77 MB
- Microsoft to PDF (simplified, color): 198 KB
(no choice to remove color; i.e., no black & white mode)

I can't remember ever using Microsoft [print] to PDF other than perhaps
to test it after doing a fresh install of Windows 10, and after all the
tweaks to Windows 10. There was some Microsoft XPS printer that
Microsoft was trying to compete against Adobe's PDF format, but that was
a failure, and I removed that printer. I don't see a reason to keep
Microsoft [print] to PDF, either.

Free 3rd-party solutions are so much better than the uber-basic stuff
Microsoft bundles in Windows.

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VanguardLH wrote:

I did a search using Startpage. I printed the web page. Results I got:

- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, color): 970 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, color): 75 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, no color): 542 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, no color): 75 KB

- Microsoft to PDF (original, color): 1.77 MB
- Microsoft to PDF (simplified, color): 198 KB

For web pages, most browsers now have built-in save/print to PDF too.

I like bullzip, the reason I started using it many years ago, was for
the ability to merge a 'watermark' PDF with the output, the equivalent
of pre-printed letterhead or invoice stationery ... not needed nowadays
as accounts packages can directly email PDF versions.

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Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

I did a search using Startpage. I printed the web page. Results I got:

- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, color): 970 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, color): 75 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, no color): 542 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, no color): 75 KB

- Microsoft to PDF (original, color): 1.77 MB
- Microsoft to PDF (simplified, color): 198 KB

For web pages, most browsers now have built-in save/print to PDF too.

I like bullzip, the reason I started using it many years ago, was for
the ability to merge a 'watermark' PDF with the output, the
equivalent of pre-printed letterhead or invoice stationery ... not
needed nowadays as accounts packages can directly email PDF versions.

I mentioned (in a reply to myself) the Save to PDF in web browsers about
2-1/2 hours before your reply. I only tested Firefox. I omitted
testing Edge/Chrome and Chrome. In Firefox, color mode for output was
disabled (as it is for the Microsoft to PDF printer).

It is not just the output file size that matters. Some PDF printer
output is less sharp. They've not used more gray scale to make
characters sharper, and they compressed more which degrades quality.
So, getting a smaller output .pdf file could likely mean less quality in
the output. I didn't bother to measure or review quality of output. My
eyes are too old, and my opinion on quality likely skewed.

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On 01/03/2023 04:54, Ant wrote:

Andy Burnelli <nospam@nospam.net> wrote:
...

I just realized "shrink pdf file size" isn't on that list.
It needs to be added.

Anyone know of freeware expressly to shrink PDF file sizes?
[_] Shrink PDF file size (Adobe Acrobat Writer payware)

https://reducepdfsize.com/ (old, but works for me)

Thanks.

--
Regards
wasbit

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On 2/28/2023 8:05 PM, Stan Brown wrote:

When I got my Windows 10 computer late in 2021, I saw that Windows
included Microsoft Print to PDF, so I didn't bother installing
CutePDF, which I use on my Windows 8.1 laptop.

But since then, I've noticed that Microsoft print to PDF creates
ridiculously large files. A four-page all-text Web page is several
MB, for instance. I delved into the settings, and there's a setting
for print-to-file quality. Hooray, thought I, I'll just set it to
lower quality, which will still be fine for all my files that are
read on screen. But the print quality setting has only one choice:
600 DPI! That seems particularly inane.

<https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/dont-use-the-microsoft- print-to-pdf-printer.86229/> says DPI can't be changed, and that
color/B&W is set to color, which also can't be changed. No wonder the
files are big!

Googling for
"Microsoft print to PDF" change dpi
turned up a bunch of software programs, but nothing native to
Windows. If I'm going to install something third party it may as well
be one I'm familiar with.

So it's back to CutePDF for me.

One of the reasons to create "new and shiny software",
is to put fresh brokenness in it.

What I'm seeing here, in the giant files, is

1) Microsoft printing has switched to Type42 fonts.
These involve huge wodges of ascii-hex.

2) Microsoft handled native fonts are relabeled "CID"
so humans cannot trace them. These are glyph fonts
and don't need quite the same wodges.

3) Ghostscript,ps,pdf is probably being handed Type42
by the OS print engine, but it seems to be able to look
inside, and re-encode things a bit.

8 0 obj
<</Type/Font/Subtype/CIDFontType2/CIDSystemInfo<</Registry(Adobe)/
Ordering(Identity)/Supplement 0>>/BaseFont/TimesNewRomanPSMT/FontDescriptor
6 0 R/DW 1000/W 7 0 R>>
endobj

And shockingly, some pages (off a web site and via Firefox browser),
the entire page is rendered as a JPEG file 2500x3300, which is not 600 DPI.
The print surface is set to 600 DPI, but the JPEG can be whatever
resolution they feel like. I don't know what tells the print path to do that. The fonts rendered inside the JPEG, naturally have jaggies and don't use glyphs.

So, CutePDF or third-party-of-the-day. Yeah, they'll probably beat Microsoft
at this task.

I use MUPDF and mutool for analysis. I can convert binary PDF to ASCII PDF (sorta), and the tool also supports extraction of objects. The object example above is object number eight out of a document. And we can read it, because
it is the ASCII format of PDF.

*******

I have been playing around with a project involving "the handling of a 15GB mailbox versus thunderbird". Since that was already running, I did some test prints.

The email itself is 2KB. The email is ASCII, no MIME or HTML.

The most efficient print I can get as a PDF is 54KB. A person
hand-crafting PDF, could probably do it in about 3KB.

The Microsoft wodge special is 500KB or so. For a one page text email.

This is the email I'm trying to print. Imagine wasting 500K for this.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/1zd0wnhw/my-email-project.gif

Paul

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Very popular in germany:
https://www.pdf24.org/

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Stan Brown used his keyboard to write :

A four-page all-text Web page is several MB, for instance.

false (?)

just used a 10-pages text file, printing from notepad++, the PDF is 109
kb

Microsoft Print to PDF has standard settings, I never changed any of
them

--
/-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ T /-\
-=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- - -=-
........... [ al lavoro ] ...........

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Ammammata <ammammata@tiscali.it> wrote:

Stan Brown used his keyboard to write :

A four-page all-text Web page is several MB, for instance.

false (?)

just used a 10-pages text file, printing from notepad++, the PDF is 109
kb

Microsoft Print to PDF has standard settings, I never changed any of
them

But a "web page", while all HTML is all text, is not a per se text file.
There could be hundreds of referenced resources, all the HTML tags
around the text, lots of comments, formatting, CSS for styling, and so
on. I don't recall ever seeing an HTML file that was bare of coding to
only have text content. If all the HTML code was stripped, yes, then
you have a plain text file. Also, when printing, content in frames may
get included along with graphics that won't be in a TXT file. You might
see a horizontal bar thinking it is a series of underscore characters,
but it is really a <HR> tag, or worse an image of a horizontal bar.

Stan said "4-page all-text web page" ignores there are no "pages" in web
docs. They span however long is their content, so they're just 1 page. Pagination of output is decided during the printing process based on
paper size. It might've been an all-text file, like he opened a local
.txt file. It might've had lots of HTML code that presents just text
elements in the rendered version.

The simplified view when selecting printing parameters strips out a lot
of content, but Stan didn't say he selected original or simplified view.
In the Print dialog, there is often (but not always) a preview pane.
When you toggle between original and simplified views, you can see how
much content gets stripped in simplified view. For example, in a web
browser, do a search on anything at your favorite online search engine.
Use the Print dialog, and switch between original and simplified.

Assuming Stan loaded a local file, and not via HTTP from a web site, so
it really was an all-text file, but with no file or on-disk sizes
mentioned, Using a local 20 KB on-disk sized .txt file loaded into
Firefox, I got the following output on-disk .pdf file sizes:

Firefox "Save to PDF" (no color choice, original, A4): 72 KB ( 3.6X)
Firefox "Save to PDF" (no color choice, simplified, A4): 72 KB ( 3.6X)
Bullzip PDF printer (black & white, original, A4): 84 KB ( 4.2X)
Bullzip PDF printer (black & white, simplified, A4): 84 KB ( 4.2X)
MS Print to PDF (no color choice, original, A4): 207 KB (10.3X)
MS Print to PDF (no color choice, simplified, A4): 196 KB ( 9.8X)

Each .pdf output file was larger than the original .txt file size.
Number of pages is irrelevant since that depends on how you view a text
file, and how it is configured for page size. While Firefox's pdf.js
and Bullzip mushroomed the .pdf to 3.6 and 4.2 times the size of the
original .txt file, Microsoft's Print to PDF was the worst offender at
10 times the size of the original .txt file.

Note: I had to reinstall the MS Print to PDF "printer" for this test. I
had previously gotten rid of the MS XPS printer that was a failed
upstart attempt by Microsoft to compete with Adobe's PDF format. I
forgot to also delete Microsoft's Print to PDF "printer". I deleted it
as this thread was a reminder, but reinstalled it to see by just how
much Microsoft's solution bloated the size of the output .pdf file.
It's pretty bad. Uninstalled it again.

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on 01/03/2023, VanguardLH supposed :

But a "web page", while all HTML is all text, is not a per se text file.

yes, I missed 'web', so I tried again using https://www.rsssf.org/ home
page
it's about 30kb text, plus 2 images
final PDF is 709 Kb

then I tried another one, text only: https://www.rsssf.org/tablest/tsjsl2hist.html
it's about 70kb text, the PDF is 440kb

same page using firefox "save to pdf" id 202kb

bullzip creates a 212kb PDF

--
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On Wed, 1 Mar 2023 04:29:47 +0000, Andy Burnelli wrote:

[x] Add or concatonate pages (pdftk freeware, acrobat payware)

Mutools creates a new PDF composed of any selected pages from one or
more existing PDFs. There are both an open source version and a
commercial version; however, there are precompiled Windows binaries
of the open-source version.

<https://mupdf.com/docs/manual-mutool-merge.html>

I've been using it to split or merge PDFs for about 4 years now, and
it's been trouble free. (You do have to be willing to use the Windows
command line.)

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

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On Tue, 28 Feb 2023 23:37:09 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Firefox's Save to PDF. That also disables the color mode
option,

By "disables the option" do you mean "forces color mode," like
Microsoft Print to PDF?

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

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XPost: comp.text.pdf, alt.comp.microsoft.windows

wasbit wrote:

On 01/03/2023 04:54, Ant wrote:

Andy Burnelli <nospam@nospam.net> wrote:
...

I just realized "shrink pdf file size" isn't on that list.
It needs to be added.

Anyone know of freeware expressly to shrink PDF file sizes?
[_] Shrink PDF file size (Adobe Acrobat Writer payware)

https://reducepdfsize.com/ (old, but works for me)

Thanks.

So that everyone benefits from every bit of new information, we should
probably be cc'ing the comp.text.pdf folks, as they know a lot of this.
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.text.pdf>
<https://groups.google.com/g/alt.comp.microsoft.windows>

I just searched the pdf group open archives (and that of the Windows ng).
*Desktop freeware to SHRINK (aka optimize) PDFs*
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.text.pdf/c/hhcIUdnNgyU/>

Which also came up with this suggestion way back in
*PDF Shrinker*, by John McWilliams
<https://groups.google.com/d/msg/misc.phone.mobile.iphone/9dPChJVDakk/gnjZ1hWTAwAJ>

Along with a whole bunch of shrinkers, too many for me to test such as
*Compress PDF Files With NXPowerLite*
<https://www.neuxpower.com/compress-pdf/>

*PDF Toolkit - PDF Optimizer - PDF downsampler*
<https://www.foxitsoftware.com/blog/pdf-toolkit-pdf-optimizer/>

*FileOptimizer*
<https://nikkhokkho.sourceforge.io/static.php?page=FileOptimizer>

... and so on ...

There were even command line settings for venerable programs such as
convert -density 200x200 -quality 60 -compress jpeg -resize 50% big.pdf small.pdf
<http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#compress>
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/ebook -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=small.pdf big.pdf

Seems like we need a _new_ listing to be compiled where every time I touch
this freeware pdf modification subject, it mushrooms out of control for me.
--
Posted out of the goodness of my heart to disseminate useful information
which, in this case, is to search for existing articles on pdf shrinkers.

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On 3/1/2023 8:47 AM, Ammammata wrote:

Stan Brown used his keyboard to write :

A four-page all-text Web page is several MB, for instance.

false (?)

just used a 10-pages text file, printing from notepad++, the PDF is 109 kb

Microsoft Print to PDF has standard settings, I never changed any of them

But what is wrong with that, is it should be smaller still!!!

That's still bloated and silly, for plain text.

To get to 109KB, most of that is the Type42 font they put in there.
It is not your text.

************* sample text to print, save as ANSI, 1,340 bytes ************** Video provides a powerful way to help you prove your point. When you click Online Video, you can paste in the embed code for the video you want to add. You can also type a keyword to search online for the video that best fits
your document.

To make your document look professionally produced, Word provides header, footer, cover page, and text box designs that complement each other. For example, you can add a matching cover page, header, and sidebar. Click
Insert and then choose the elements you want from the different galleries.

Themes and styles also help keep your document coordinated. When you click Design and choose a new Theme, the pictures, charts, and SmartArt graphics change to match your new theme. When you apply styles, your headings change
to match the new theme.

Save time in Word with new buttons that show up where you need them. To
change the way a picture fits in your document, click it and a button for layout options appears next to it. When you work on a table, click where
you want to add a row or a column, and then click the plus sign.

Reading is easier, too, in the new Reading view. You can collapse parts of
the document and focus on the text you want. If you need to stop reading
before you reach the end, Word remembers where you left off - even on
another device.

************* sample text to print, save as ANSI, 1,340 bytes **************

To get it to look just right, means spelling out what I want. The
defaults use about twice the space of this example.

From bash shell

a2ps -R -B -f 12 --columns 1 -s 1 -a 1 --media Letter sampletext.txt -o- | ps2pdf13 - out.pdf

6,100 bytes Mar 1 09:30 out.pdf

About two-thirds of the file is the Courier font.

*******

Let us take an even smaller source, a hand-crafted PostScript file. 94 bytes.

%!PS
/Times-Bold findfont 36 scalefont setfont
72 684 moveto (Hello World!) show
showpage

The PDF for that is 1,287 bytes.

ps2pdf13 hello.ps hello.pdf <=== then check the byte count.

mutool convert -F pdf -O decompress,clean -o hello2.pdf hello.pdf <=== structure analysis

Times-Bold is a standard font. And may have not needed to
be embedded or something. If I re-encode the file (mutool),
the tool uses a Nimbus font, which is 60KB in size. And
the economy is lost.

To work out the cost to display more lines of text, using
the Times Bold thing, H e l l o W o r l d ! , the mutool output
is OK for that. Since this is the "ASCII PDF" representation,
the 0029 is two bytes of binary in the real file, so double
the bytes of the input text (assuming the input text was
not done in wide characters, as then there would be a one
to one correspondence). The coordinates are likely to be
the cell numbers in the font, holding the characters.

/F0 36 Tf
1 0 0 1 72 684 Tm
[<00290046004D004D00500001003800500053004D00450002>] TJ
ET

With hand coding, ten pages of text could use considerably
less than 100KB. In past times, the output wouldn't be quite
as bloated as what is produced today.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Stan Brown wrote on 2/28/2023 6:05 PM:

When I got my Windows 10 computer late in 2021, I saw that Windows
included Microsoft Print to PDF, so I didn't bother installing
CutePDF, which I use on my Windows 8.1 laptop.

But since then, I've noticed that Microsoft print to PDF creates
ridiculously large files. A four-page all-text Web page is several
MB, for instance. I delved into the settings, and there's a setting
for print-to-file quality. Hooray, thought I, I'll just set it to
lower quality, which will still be fine for all my files that are
read on screen. But the print quality setting has only one choice:
600 DPI! That seems particularly inane.

<https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/dont-use-the-microsoft- print-to-pdf-printer.86229/> says DPI can't be changed, and that
color/B&W is set to color, which also can't be changed. No wonder the
files are big!

Googling for
"Microsoft print to PDF" change dpi
turned up a bunch of software programs, but nothing native to
Windows. If I'm going to install something third party it may as well
be one I'm familiar with.

So it's back to CutePDF for me.

I seldom have a need for MSFT Print to PDF but have used it. Probably
never concerned about the file size.

Testing today on Win 10/Win11 Pro
- 4 page HTML and Text blog article printed in Edge or Chrome with MSFT
Print to PDF was under 2 MB
- coping the same article in Edge or Chrome and pasting retaining
formatting in Office 365's Word, then printing in Word to PDF was under 1
MB.


--
...w¡ñ§±¤ñ

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/03/2023 12:18, Michael Logies wrote:

Very popular in germany:
https://www.pdf24.org/

Nice programme. I've used it for several years instead of PDF-Exchange &
PDF Creator because it does so much in one small programme.
Both PDF24 & PDF Creator have compression options

- https://www.pdf24.org/
- https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

--
Regards
wasbit

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 2 Mar 2023 09:45:13 +0000, wasbit <wasbit@nowhere.com> wrote:

Nice programme. I've used it for several years instead of PDF-Exchange &
PDF Creator because it does so much in one small programme.

One small programme... only 288 MB.

--
croy

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/1/2023 9:05 AM, Stan Brown wrote:

But since then, I've noticed that Microsoft print to PDF creates
ridiculously large files. A four-page all-text Web page is several
MB, for instance. I delved into the settings, and there's a setting
for print-to-file quality. Hooray, thought I, I'll just set it to
lower quality, which will still be fine for all my files that are
read on screen. But the print quality setting has only one choice:
600 DPI! That seems particularly inane.

Because it printed to an image, which was then converted back into PDF?

I think the quality setting mattered. Not sure whether CutePDF actually
convert text in the input document to actually text fonts in a PDF.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 2 Mar 2023 09:45:13 +0000, wasbit <wasbit@nowhere.com> wrote:

On 01/03/2023 12:18, Michael Logies wrote:

Very popular in germany:
https://www.pdf24.org/

Nice programme. I've used it for several years instead of PDF-Exchange &
PDF Creator because it does so much in one small programme.
Both PDF24 & PDF Creator have compression options

- https://www.pdf24.org/
- https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

I had never heard of it before, but I just downloaded it and will try
it for a while. So far it looks very good. It does a lot of things, so
it may be a better choice than Foxit, which I've been using..

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2023-03-01 16:59, Ammammata wrote:

on 01/03/2023, VanguardLH supposed :

But a "web page", while all HTML is all text, is not a per se text file.

yes, I missed 'web', so I tried again using https://www.rsssf.org/ home page it's about 30kb text, plus 2 images
final PDF is 709 Kb

then I tried another one, text only: https://www.rsssf.org/tablest/tsjsl2hist.html
it's about 70kb text, the PDF is 440kb

same page using firefox "save to pdf" id 202kb

in my Linux, that page in FF, print to pdf, takes 92K.

cer@Telcontar:~> pdfinfo Czechoslovakia\ -\ List\ of\ Second\ Level\
League\ Tables\ 1970-1993.pdf
Creator: Mozilla Firefox
Producer: cairo 1.17.4 (https://cairographics.org)
CreationDate: Thu Mar 2 20:36:05 2023 CET
Custom Metadata: no
Metadata Stream: no
Tagged: no
UserProperties: no
Suspects: no
Form: none
JavaScript: no
Pages: 34
Encrypted: no
Page size: 842 x 596 pts (A4)
Page rot: 0
File size: 93402 bytes
Optimized: no
PDF version: 1.5
cer@Telcontar:~>

cer@Telcontar:~> pdffonts Czechoslovakia\ -\ List\ of\ Second\ Level\ League\ Tables\ 1970-1993.pdf
name type encoding emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
EKUGVP+CairoFont-0-0 Type 1C WinAnsi yes yes yes 10 0
XKTWLQ+CairoFont-1-0 Type 1C WinAnsi yes yes yes 11 0
VBPJMM+CairoFont-2-0 Type 1C WinAnsi yes yes yes 12 0
KPTDZI+CairoFont-3-0 Type 1C WinAnsi yes yes yes 13 0
LMXPCR+CairoFont-4-0 Type 1C WinAnsi yes yes yes 219 0
cer@Telcontar:~>

However, the first link takes 2.3 MB.

cer@Telcontar:~> pdfinfo The\ Introduction\ Page\ of\ the\ RSSSF\ --\
The\ Rec.Sport.Soccer\ Statistics\ Foundation..pdf
Creator: Mozilla Firefox
Producer: cairo 1.17.4 (https://cairographics.org)
CreationDate: Thu Mar 2 20:39:18 2023 CET
Custom Metadata: no
Metadata Stream: no
Tagged: no
UserProperties: no
Suspects: no
Form: none
JavaScript: no
Pages: 15
Encrypted: no
Page size: 842 x 596 pts (A4)
Page rot: 0
File size: 2379266 bytes
Optimized: no
PDF version: 1.5
cer@Telcontar:~>

cer@Telcontar:~> pdffonts The\ Introduction\ Page\ of\ the\ RSSSF\ --\ The\ Rec.Sport.Soccer\ Statistics\ Foundation..pdf
name type encoding emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
DYOJIG+CairoFont-0-0 Type 1C WinAnsi yes yes yes 56 0
FASZWM+CairoFont-1-0 Type 1C WinAnsi yes yes yes 57 0
VLAWPN+CairoFont-2-0 Type 1C WinAnsi yes yes yes 58 0
DPTQJF+CairoFont-3-0 Type 1C WinAnsi yes yes yes 59 0
YBVYQL+CairoFont-4-0 Type 1C WinAnsi yes yes yes 60 0
EAHOKH+CairoFont-1-1 CID Type 0C Identity-H yes yes yes 1717 0
cer@Telcontar:~>

--
Cheers, Carlos.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2023-03-01 09:45, VanguardLH wrote:

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

I did a search using Startpage. I printed the web page. Results I got: >>>
- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, color): 970 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, color): 75 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, no color): 542 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, no color): 75 KB

- Microsoft to PDF (original, color): 1.77 MB
- Microsoft to PDF (simplified, color): 198 KB

For web pages, most browsers now have built-in save/print to PDF too.

I like bullzip, the reason I started using it many years ago, was for
the ability to merge a 'watermark' PDF with the output, the
equivalent of pre-printed letterhead or invoice stationery ... not
needed nowadays as accounts packages can directly email PDF versions.

I mentioned (in a reply to myself) the Save to PDF in web browsers about 2-1/2 hours before your reply. I only tested Firefox. I omitted
testing Edge/Chrome and Chrome. In Firefox, color mode for output was disabled (as it is for the Microsoft to PDF printer).

It is not just the output file size that matters. Some PDF printer
output is less sharp. They've not used more gray scale to make
characters sharper, and they compressed more which degrades quality.
So, getting a smaller output .pdf file could likely mean less quality in
the output. I didn't bother to measure or review quality of output. My
eyes are too old, and my opinion on quality likely skewed.

PDF output can be a rendered photo, or not. And photos are generated
thinking of the "printer" resolution. This effects file size.

You can render a page of text as text with format, or as a photo. That
affects size.

Fonts can be embedded, or not.

Things like "the background is yellow" are small, but if rendered as
photo are huge.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/2/2023 11:16 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

On 3/1/2023 9:05 AM, Stan Brown wrote:

But since then, I've noticed that Microsoft print to PDF creates
ridiculously large files. A four-page all-text Web page is several
MB, for instance. I delved into the settings, and there's a setting
for print-to-file quality. Hooray, thought I, I'll just set it to
lower quality, which will still be fine for all my files that are
read on screen. But the print quality setting has only one choice:
600 DPI! That seems particularly inane.

Because it printed to an image, which was then converted back into PDF?

I think the quality setting mattered. Not sure whether CutePDF actually convert text in the input document to actually text fonts in a PDF.

Microsoft stores this inside a PDF, when the PDF is made.

Notice to store this page, takes 1 megabyte of data.

This file was extracted using the mutool extract command on a
PDF file from a browser web page.

https://i.postimg.cc/KzwLVVV9/image-0026.jpg

That is to give you some idea what has happened to the text. The
text is rendered inside the JPG and has jagged edges.

While you can overlay text strings over top of that (similar to
how OCR is done and injected into a PDF), they can just leave
the images if they want and not bother with fonts.

mutool extract arstechica-via-microsoft.pdf

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/2/2023 10:57 AM, croy wrote:

On Thu, 2 Mar 2023 09:45:13 +0000, wasbit <wasbit@nowhere.com> wrote:

Nice programme. I've used it for several years instead of PDF-Exchange &
PDF Creator because it does so much in one small programme.

One small programme... only 288 MB.

Check for QT4 or QT5 ?

That's the first thing I look for, when there is bloat.
QT makes it easy to be cross-platform, but things like
internationalization tend to blow up the size.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/2/2023 2:31 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2023-03-01 09:45, VanguardLH wrote:

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

I did a search using Startpage.  I printed the web page.  Results I got: >>>>
- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, color): 970 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, color): 75 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, no color): 542 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, no color): 75 KB

- Microsoft to PDF (original, color): 1.77 MB
- Microsoft to PDF (simplified, color): 198 KB

For web pages, most browsers now have built-in save/print to PDF too.

I like bullzip, the reason I started using it many years ago, was for
the ability to merge a 'watermark' PDF with the output, the
equivalent of pre-printed letterhead or invoice stationery ... not
needed nowadays as accounts packages can directly email PDF versions.

I mentioned (in a reply to myself) the Save to PDF in web browsers about
2-1/2 hours before your reply.  I only tested Firefox.  I omitted
testing Edge/Chrome and Chrome.  In Firefox, color mode for output was
disabled (as it is for the Microsoft to PDF printer).

It is not just the output file size that matters.  Some PDF printer
output is less sharp.  They've not used more gray scale to make
characters sharper, and they compressed more which degrades quality.
So, getting a smaller output .pdf file could likely mean less quality in
the output.  I didn't bother to measure or review quality of output.  My >> eyes are too old, and my opinion on quality likely skewed.

PDF output can be a rendered photo, or not. And photos are generated thinking of the "printer" resolution. This effects file size.

You can render a page of text as text with format, or as a photo. That affects size.

Fonts can be embedded, or not.

Things like "the background is yellow" are small, but if rendered as photo are huge.

You can place images with resolutions *higher* than the print engine
in a file, and the print engine knows what to do.

Setting a resolution option as part of the printing process, does
not necessarily "cap" everything that comes along.

Both PostScript and PDF have transformation matricies, so they
can scale anything up or down arbitrarily. The matrix also allows
rotation, and if you're really clever, you can rotate the stupid
image so it does not even hit the paper (been there, bought the
Tshirt). A rotation of -90 degrees makes the image "disappear".

Adobe has a couple of manuals, up around 1000 pages or so each,
and it contains the entire Postscript and PDF languages and
how the matrix math works. That's where you learn such things.
These manuals can be downloaded for free (at one time, they were
printed and bound, and I have one of those back when you couldn't
get them as a PDF).

If some matrix operators had gone missing in a print, your
print job might appear in a 1" x 1" square on the paper.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 3/2/2023 2:49 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2023-03-01 16:59, Ammammata wrote:

on 01/03/2023, VanguardLH supposed :

But a "web page", while all HTML is all text, is not a per se text file.

yes, I missed 'web', so I tried again using https://www.rsssf.org/ home page >> it's about 30kb text, plus 2 images
final PDF is 709 Kb

then I tried another one, text only: https://www.rsssf.org/tablest/tsjsl2hist.html
it's about 70kb text, the PDF is 440kb

same page using firefox "save to pdf" id 202kb

in my Linux, that page in FF, print to pdf, takes 92K.

cer@Telcontar:~> pdfinfo Czechoslovakia\ -\ List\ of\ Second\ Level\ League\ Tables\ 1970-1993.pdf
Creator:         Mozilla Firefox
Producer:        cairo 1.17.4 (https://cairographics.org) CreationDate:    Thu Mar  2 20:36:05 2023 CET
Custom Metadata: no
Metadata Stream: no
Tagged:          no
UserProperties:  no
Suspects:        no
Form:            none
JavaScript:      no
Pages:           34
Encrypted:       no
Page size:       842 x 596 pts (A4)
Page rot:        0
File size:       93402 bytes
Optimized:       no
PDF version:     1.5
cer@Telcontar:~>

cer@Telcontar:~> pdffonts Czechoslovakia\ -\ List\ of\ Second\ Level\ League\ Tables\ 1970-1993.pdf name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
EKUGVP+CairoFont-0-0                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes yes     10  0
XKTWLQ+CairoFont-1-0                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes yes     11  0
VBPJMM+CairoFont-2-0                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes yes     12  0
KPTDZI+CairoFont-3-0                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes yes     13  0
LMXPCR+CairoFont-4-0                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes yes    219  0
cer@Telcontar:~>

However, the first link takes 2.3 MB.

cer@Telcontar:~> pdfinfo The\ Introduction\ Page\ of\ the\ RSSSF\ --\ The\ Rec.Sport.Soccer\ Statistics\ Foundation..pdf
Creator:         Mozilla Firefox
Producer:        cairo 1.17.4 (https://cairographics.org) CreationDate:    Thu Mar  2 20:39:18 2023 CET
Custom Metadata: no
Metadata Stream: no
Tagged:          no
UserProperties:  no
Suspects:        no
Form:            none
JavaScript:      no
Pages:           15
Encrypted:       no
Page size:       842 x 596 pts (A4)
Page rot:        0
File size:       2379266 bytes
Optimized:       no
PDF version:     1.5
cer@Telcontar:~>

cer@Telcontar:~> pdffonts The\ Introduction\ Page\ of\ the\ RSSSF\ --\ The\ Rec.Sport.Soccer\ Statistics\ Foundation..pdf name                                 type              encoding         emb

sub uni object ID

------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
DYOJIG+CairoFont-0-0                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes yes     56  0
FASZWM+CairoFont-1-0                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes yes     57  0
VLAWPN+CairoFont-2-0                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes yes     58  0
DPTQJF+CairoFont-3-0                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes yes     59  0
YBVYQL+CairoFont-4-0                 Type 1C           WinAnsi          yes yes yes     60  0
EAHOKH+CairoFont-1-1                 CID Type 0C       Identity-H       yes yes yes   1717  0
cer@Telcontar:~>

The best I can do on the text table, was to load the HTML
link into LibreOffice Writer, then Export As PDF and that was a 98 KB PDF.
It uses LiberationSerif font (plain and bold) for rendering,
using its own TrueType font. So that might be a similar Cairo
print path.

While I haven't examined it for Type42 fonts, there probably
aren't any, given the size of the file.

Saving the text table link as a Web Page Complete, is a 71KB .htm file.
No Javascript. Some kind of miracle. Who knew you could make web pages
without Javascript.

Czech text table test:

Web 71KB
PDF with TTfont (LO) 98KB
XPS 350KB
Postscript (Type42 fonts) 699KB ==> ps2pdf13 (Courier, TimesRoman, TTfont) 171 KB

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Firefox's Save to PDF. That also disables the color mode
option,

By "disables the option" do you mean "forces color mode," like
Microsoft Print to PDF?

Yep. The Color button is disabled meaning you cannot click on it to
select black & white.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 28 Feb 2023 17:05:30 -0800, in alt.comp.os.windows-10, Stan Brown wrote:

When I got my Windows 10 computer late in 2021, I saw that Windows
included Microsoft Print to PDF, so I didn't bother installing
CutePDF, which I use on my Windows 8.1 laptop.

But since then, I've noticed that Microsoft print to PDF creates
ridiculously large files. A four-page all-text Web page is several
MB, for instance. I delved into the settings, and there's a setting
for print-to-file quality. Hooray, thought I, I'll just set it to
lower quality, which will still be fine for all my files that are
read on screen. But the print quality setting has only one choice:
600 DPI! That seems particularly inane.

<https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/dont-use-the-microsoft- >print-to-pdf-printer.86229/> says DPI can't be changed, and that
color/B&W is set to color, which also can't be changed. No wonder the
files are big!

Googling for
"Microsoft print to PDF" change dpi
turned up a bunch of software programs, but nothing native to
Windows. If I'm going to install something third party it may as well
be one I'm familiar with.

So it's back to CutePDF for me.

Thanks for the heads up. I never noticed what a pig it was until you
brought it up because disk sizes are so huge.

I went for CutePDF too, because I used to use PrimoPDF but it's old and throwing up a lot of web errors (even though it works). Primo is nice
because you can customize size and quality on the spot.

Thank you for posting something useful to these groups!

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

XPost: comp.text.pdf, alt.comp.microsoft.windows

On 01/03/2023 19:37, Andy Burnelli wrote:

wasbit wrote:

On 01/03/2023 04:54, Ant wrote:

Andy Burnelli <nospam@nospam.net> wrote:
...

I just realized "shrink pdf file size" isn't on that list.
It needs to be added.

Anyone know of freeware expressly to shrink PDF file sizes?
[_] Shrink PDF file size (Adobe Acrobat Writer payware)

https://reducepdfsize.com/ (old, but works for me)

Thanks.

No, I didn't.

Michael Logies posted in alt.comp.os.windows-10
Very popular in germany:
https://www.pdf24.org/

I replied
Nice programme. I've used it for several years instead of PDF-Exchange &
PDF Creator because it does so much in one small programme.
Both PDF24 & PDF Creator have compression options

- https://www.pdf24.org/
- https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

--
Regards
wasbit

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2023-03-02 23:56, Paul wrote:

On 3/2/2023 2:31 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2023-03-01 09:45, VanguardLH wrote:

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

I did a search using Startpage.  I printed the web page.  Results I >>>>> got:

- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, color): 970 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, color): 75 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (original, no color): 542 KB
- Bullzip PDF Printer (simplified, no color): 75 KB

- Microsoft to PDF (original, color): 1.77 MB
- Microsoft to PDF (simplified, color): 198 KB

For web pages, most browsers now have built-in save/print to PDF too.

I like bullzip, the reason I started using it many years ago, was for
the ability to merge a 'watermark' PDF with the output, the
equivalent of pre-printed letterhead or invoice stationery ... not
needed nowadays as accounts packages can directly email PDF versions.

I mentioned (in a reply to myself) the Save to PDF in web browsers about >>> 2-1/2 hours before your reply.  I only tested Firefox.  I omitted
testing Edge/Chrome and Chrome.  In Firefox, color mode for output was
disabled (as it is for the Microsoft to PDF printer).

It is not just the output file size that matters.  Some PDF printer
output is less sharp.  They've not used more gray scale to make
characters sharper, and they compressed more which degrades quality.
So, getting a smaller output .pdf file could likely mean less quality in >>> the output.  I didn't bother to measure or review quality of output.  My >>> eyes are too old, and my opinion on quality likely skewed.

PDF output can be a rendered photo, or not. And photos are generated
thinking of the "printer" resolution. This effects file size.

You can render a page of text as text with format, or as a photo. That
affects size.

Fonts can be embedded, or not.

Things like "the background is yellow" are small, but if rendered as
photo are huge.

You can place images with resolutions *higher* than the print engine
in a file, and the print engine knows what to do.

True, but the images are bigger, occupy more file space. Depends on the situation whether you want a small file or big.

Setting a resolution option as part of the printing process, does
not necessarily "cap" everything that comes along.

Both PostScript and PDF have transformation matricies, so they
can scale anything up or down arbitrarily. The matrix also allows
rotation, and if you're really clever, you can rotate the stupid
image so it does not even hit the paper (been there, bought the
Tshirt). A rotation of -90 degrees makes the image "disappear".

Adobe has a couple of manuals, up around 1000 pages or so each,
and it contains the entire Postscript and PDF languages and
how the matrix math works. That's where you learn such things.
These manuals can be downloaded for free (at one time, they were
printed and bound, and I have one of those back when you couldn't
get them as a PDF).

If some matrix operators had gone missing in a print, your
print job might appear in a 1" x 1" square on the paper.

   Paul

--
Cheers, Carlos.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)