I have a customer that has a 2 page Illustrator CS4 file. There are 2 pages, only about 8.4 x 9 in. each. The embedded pics are 300 dpi each, sized as seen, they are only around 1M in size each average, yet the .ai file is 250M in size!!! Saving as a PDF only takes it down to 210M.

What could be making it so big? The background being done at too high of a resolution?

The fonts are not paths.

I reduced the pdf with ColorSync Utility then made jpgs to be able to post here. Any ideas graphics gurus?

Thx

Off the top of my head…
#1 Link the files.
#2 Delete unused swatches, brushes, symbols, etc.
#3 Save As and uncheck "Create PDF Compatible File"
#4 Check Illustrator forum There are a ton of complaints.
#5 Ask Mr. Dempsey.

#1, Not embedding would help the .ai file size but do you know if linking makes it smaller proportionately, for example if you don't link 30M worth of files does it only take it down by 30M? If you make a PDF it's going to have embed them anyway though. I could try it but I'm lazy so I'd rather pick brains first.

#2, I'll have to check that out.

#3, That cut the .ai file size in half, but when I saved the smaller file as a PDF it went back to 230M.

#4, I know, I just figured after 13+ years I'd ask a question and try and call in some markers here too.

#5, You read my mind.

If anyone is so inclined here's the .ai file. http://gesplus.com/files/PRE.ai.zip It's 230M but it's a strong connection. I'm not looking for someone to do the production work. The customer will be doing more of these, but I want to try and find out what it would take for them to do it right in the future. The giving fish vs teaching to fish thing.

Any transparency or effects? It doesn't look like it.
You mentioned the background. It doesn't look like it needs to be a raster file, but if it is, I'm sure you could reduce the resolution, or recreate it as vector.
I wish Illustrator had better embedded file controls.
With FreeHand you could assign an editor (Photoshop), and either double click to open, or even extract it.
Can't download the file right now, too much to do.

On a personal note, I hate what has become of vector art in the new age.
I don't need blurs and bevels and lens flares and transparency and drop shadows set to "Multiply" at 34% over a rainbow painted unicorn.

In Illustrator.

<ROFL></ROFL>

"But it doesn't look like the monitor!"

This is…
What will ultimately…
Drive…
Me…
Insane…

Bottom line, and my point is…
File size is still a problem.

Is it that huuuuuge ass white background it's on?

Reduce viewing size to 8.33% and you will see what I mean......
I don't know AI from nothing.. but is that the pasteboard? or actual pixels?

Exporting out to a .psd makes the file 11MB.

Do you mean each original photo was only 1M in size before it was brought into Illustrator? If so, I find that hard to believe ...

The pictures are definitely the space hogs -- I deleted the top left photo on the page with the PR logo on it and saved ~21MB right there. Most have been reduced to ~ 2%, 4% and 7% of their original dimensions, which means the originals are much, much larger. And as you may know, when you size-down a picture in illustrator it doesn't resample the image; all the original data is still there =)
So while the original photos may be 300dpi, the scaled-down ones are effectively many thousands dpi ...

If in Illustrator you use Object -> Rasterize to resample each image to 300dpi and re-save, the resulting file is around 52MB =D

Or, if you have Acrobat, you can save-off the PDF and use the PDF Optimizer in Acrobat to resample everything at once as well as getting rid of Illustrator-specific data, which also cuts-down on file-size =)

Wow, thx #6. The logo actually was 3 parts, I rasterized all 3, and the rest of the images, and it's down to 11.5M. I also used transparency background instead of white, when I get a chance I'll try it with white and see if it looks different or or changes size,

Rasterizing won't affect print quality, right? If I enlarge the doc to 600% I can see that it does get rid of some detail though.

I'm going to get in touch with them and get the originals to see what size they really are.

Thanks again. I've been in the industry for 25+ years but have always been on the equipment repair side, never had the pleasure of working in production.

300dpi is a pretty standard print resolution, so you should be good to go =)

Although if you feel the need to be double-extra-plus sure, you could resample them down to 600dpi and still probably cut down on the file size a good deal.

Also, be sure to keep the original file and work off of copies, since once you reduce the resolution of an image you can't get that data back (for example, if you resample a photo down to 300 dpi, resampling it up after that up to 600dpi won't improve the image quality ... you'd want to go back to the original file, make another copy and resample that down to 600dpi ;-)

I just noticed that I could see a definite difference on screen when I went down to 300, whether it would matter once it hit the press at that small a size (inch wise) I don't know. They are going to print at pretty high res on glossy stock, it's a brochure. Thx.

LOL. Yeah thanks, I preach that all the time to my customers.

That's what TimeMachine is for though.