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pdf export file size
michael_mcewen
OS Professional Posts: 77 PRO
I just noticed that my recent drawings exported as pdf's have a file size of about 5mb, whereas earlier exports to pdf from just a month ago or so were significantly smaller, averaging below 500kb. Any idea what's up with that? Seems excessive for simple line drawings. Is there a setting to lower the export file size?
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Best Answers
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viru
Member, Developers Posts: 619 ✭✭✭✭
@michael_mcewen, Yes I also observed the same higher pdf size. Can you contact with support team by raising support ticket. They definitely provide some solution for this.
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PeteYodis
Moderator, Onshape Employees Posts: 541 
The current PDF Export embeds the fonts within the PDF file that gets created. This is done to ensure downstream consumers of the PDF file do not need the fonts installed on their device in order to see the text in the PDF. Customers often want text to exist in the PDF to enable searching the contents of the PDF. There is a coming improvement for settings on the export of PDF files from drawings to opt not to treat text this way, and instead treat the PDF as a pure image (no text). This will reduce PDF file size, but will not yield PDF files that are searchable later on.6 -
rachel_arden
Member Posts: 14 ✭✭
To resurrect a dead thread.
We've noticed our pdf files are unusually large, over a MB, but when I checked the settings on export the text was set to 'normal' not 'selectable'.
When I exported one drawing with normal text setting it was 1206KB but with selectable text instead the file size was a more reasonable 74KB. This seems, from Pete's comment, the wrong way round for the size difference to be.
Going forward I'm just going to pick selectable so it's not an issue I just wondered if the reason behind the large file sizes had changed?1 -
NeilCooke
Moderator, Onshape Employees Posts: 5,665
I guess it depends upon the size of the drawing? If it is a pure image it could be huge, whereas selectable text is just text in EPS format.Senior Director, Technical Services, EMEAI5
Answers
We've noticed our pdf files are unusually large, over a MB, but when I checked the settings on export the text was set to 'normal' not 'selectable'.
When I exported one drawing with normal text setting it was 1206KB but with selectable text instead the file size was a more reasonable 74KB. This seems, from Pete's comment, the wrong way round for the size difference to be.
Going forward I'm just going to pick selectable so it's not an issue I just wondered if the reason behind the large file sizes had changed?
Oh yeah, that makes a huge difference. It converted the pdf I made yesterday from 1,800Kb to 72kb, and the text appears much smoother on screen with selectable text. Thank you!