[bug-pcl] reducing the size Ghostpcl generated PDFs

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stefan Kemper" <stefan.kemper at artifex.com>
To: "Brian K. White" <brian at aljex.com>
Cc: <bug-pcl at ghostscript.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 2:00 PM
Subject: Re: [bug-pcl] reducing the size Ghostpcl generated PDFs


> On Wed, 2004-09-29 at 11:31, Brian K. White wrote:
>> Stefan Kemper wrote:
>> > Jon,
>> >
>> > You might want to try:
>> >
>> > gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=/home/jon/smaller.pdf bigger.pdf
>> >
>> > looking at the gs/doc/Ps2pdf.htm there are distiller parameters that
>> > you can use to shrink the output pdf even more.
>>
>> In that case, wouldn't it be better to have pcl6 output ps instead of pdf
>> and pipe it into gs ?
>
> pdfwrite is a high level device pswrite is a lowlevel device.
>
> pcl -> pdf -> pdf  will give you nice small pdfs
>
> pcl -> ps -> gives very large files
>
> pcl -> ps -> pdf will also give large files
>
...
>
> Pdfwrite stores high level vectors, fonts, images etc.  This is slow to
> generate but can generate much smaller output.
>
> The second step of running gs to convert a pdf into a smaller pdf is
> just reducing the resolution of raster images and patterns from 600dpi
> to 72dpi with lossy comression.
>
>> So, if it were me, I'd see if this doesn't run faster than creating a bad
>> pdf and the converting it to a better pdf:
>> pcl2ps invoice.pcl - |gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=invoice.pdf -
>>
...
>
> If our pswrite stored high level objects you would have a point but
> since that project isn't finished I wouldn't try this approach.

aha, got it.
thanks for the insight.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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