Corel Draw 2020 - exported PDF data size are much larger than they should be.

[Andy D]

I don't remember this being an issue before Corel Draw 2020: whenever I export a PDF, it's larger than what it should be. I just exported a 8.5" x 11" estimate, all vectors - no images, not a lot of text or lines & it was over 2MB, it should have been a few KB...
I know this doesn't sound like a huge deal, but it has been in the past.
I have tried exporting & "publishing", switching up stuff in the PDF settings pop-up, converting text to outline, etc.
Any suggestions?

 

[TammieH]

I noticed the newer Illustrators do the same, I had been using CS5 until a month ago.

 

[Andy D]

Can you post an example pdf?

Yeah, I removed some of the info so now it's less than 1mb... but there's no reason it should be over 10-20kb.
I have had similar items end up being 6-7MB.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Could be the PDF engine itself. May have had changes, some inefficient code added to it etc. Typically the larger ones that I have seen though were more of the "print to file" pdf drivers and not necessarily the save as/export to pdf drivers.

 

[unclebun]

I find that when I export eps files with Corel Draw 2020 I get huge files, but not with pdf's. You might want to go through the export filter interface to see if changing some settings fixes it for you.

 

[iPrintStuff]

Have you looked at what older versions of acrobat it is compatible with? I managed to get a file down from 50MB to 24MB earlier simply by changing it from “retain existing” to “10.0 and later”

 

[Bobby H]

I would experiment with the PDF export pre-sets in CorelDRAW 2020. Plenty of settings can make a substantial difference with file size. Embedded printer profiles can add 500kb or more. Embedded fonts take up space, especially if the entire font file is included rather than a limited sub-set. The default PDF export pre-set in CDR 2020 is Document Distribution.

If the artwork has certain "live" raster-based effects, such as drop shadows, obviously that will increase the file size. If the PDF is made to be backward compatible with old PDF readers or applications certain kinds of gradient fills or transparent fills may be converted to raster-based objects clipped to the parent object.

 

[Andy D]

I figured you just had something silly like a transparency on the blue or something.

Hmmm, that could be, I will check, thanks.

 

[ColorCrest]

Any suggestions?

Your PDF is v1.7. I think that's the latest version which offers a lot of advanced features but you're not using those in this case of your estimate form. I'm guessing the PDF shows on disk about the same size as your original Corel estimate file? I'm also guessing Corel has saved this version so Corel can re-open the PDF and work natively. (That's what I glean from inspection because each and every object is described via its coordinates.) There as also ICC profiles which are adding a little weight.

So, does your Corel have the option to save as lower versions of PDF?

 

[Bobby H]

The default PDF export settings in CorelDRAW 2020 pretty much have all the bells and whistles turned on by default. JBurton mentioned the feature of embedding thumbnails. That adds to the file size too. And that can be substantial when you consider the nature of modern operating systems. To find the right balance between PDF features and resulting file size it really takes experimenting with the PDF output settings. Just like what we're talking about with PDF output from CorelDRAW, the same thing applies with Adobe Illustrator. That application also has a great deal of PDF output options, some of which create great big files and others that make much smaller files in terms of data size (but are often far less editable).

 

[gabagoo]

I find that when I export eps files with Corel Draw 2020 I get huge files, but not with pdf's. You might want to go through the export filter interface to see if changing some settings fixes it for you.

Have one customer who sends me vector files out of Corel as eps and they were to large to email. He found if he turned preview off they reduced in size

 

[Adam Vreeke]

I am unsure of Corel, but I know in Illustrator when you save a PDF there is a check mark for "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities", when I get a huge file like that for printing or cutting I will uncheck that box, basically just flattens the image. Be sure to save as a different file name to not overwrite the original file. That would be the first thing I would check.

 

[Lindsey]

+1 for turning off create "preview/thumbnail".

This is a stretch, but maybe worth mentioning. I've noticed when publishing PDFs using X4 & X7 that other objects that are inside the Corel file (but off the page), Corel will somehow include the data for them in the PDF, and they contribute to the total size of the PDF file. Even if the pdf settings (in "general"->"export range") are set to "page only" or "selection only", the other objects that are off the page or not selected seem to get included in some mysterious hidden way.

To help make sure my PDFs stay at a manageable size, I copy & paste just the contents of the "page" I want to publish into a fresh document with nothing else in it.