PDF file sizes from Bricscad

Richard Sands
Richard Sands
in Other

Bruce's post below made me look at the way Bricscad handles PD export and I found a 31 kb .dwg became a 3.2 mb PDF when exported.

But if i print to PDF (Bluebeam Revu) the resulting size is 140 kb.

Curious why the 'Export' function makes such a large file.
There aren't any images involved, just text and some linework.

regards

Comments

  • Richard Webb
    Richard Webb

    See the recent comment by Roy Klein Gebbinck in the thread "Trying to write a custom linetype and getting 'Error undefined linetype'" (http://www.bricscad.com/common/support/forumthread.jsp?id=16174). Roy speculates that the file size difference may be due to how arcs become converted to line segments when printing to an external PDF printer.

  • Roy Klein Gebbinck
    Roy Klein Gebbinck

    @ Richard Webb:
    That was not my point in the thread you mention (http://forum.bricsys.com/discussion/16174). What I was trying to say is that for Bricscad's export to pfd option, using 'real arc shapes' reduces the size of the pdf considerably (ca. 50%). Using a pdf printer the reduction is limited (ca. 15%). I was not comparing the results of Bricscad's export to pfd option with those of a pdf printer.
    The fact that Bricscad's export to pfd option creates real arcs and circles should actually reduce pdf sizes.

    @ Richard Sands:
    Some questions:
    1. Do you export with layer support?
    2. Does your drawing contain a lot of small details? Even very small details end up in a Bricscad pdf but not in a pdf-printer pdf.
    3. Do you embed fonts?

  • Richard Sands
    Richard Sands

    I see I had an image inserted at a very small size that I unaware of and that inflated the size.

    It didn't show until I plotted the page and saw a very small dot on the page.

    Anyway - I did some checks just for interest.

    Bcad original dwg = 31 kb
    Print to PDF using Bluebeam = 140 kb
    Export to PDF - No font embedding = 59 kb
    Export to PDF - with font embedding = 379 kb.
    The dwg only had 3 layers and two contained no elements.

    It was a simple dwg with 8 lines and 4 arcs and 2 text insertions. No paper space elements.
    that was after I cleaned out the image!

    My mistake but I did learn something - thanks Roy

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