Reduce the size of Scribus generated PDFs
See also
- http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Web_optimised_PDF
- http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Image_DPI_and_Scaling,_and_Resultant_File_Sizes
Simply using Ghostscript
For example, on a MacIntosh with Mac OS 10.6.2, Scribus 1.3.6, Ghostscript 8.71, this ghostscript command will knock a 1.9GB PDF file generated by Scribus down to less than 300MB which is very helpful :
gs-8.71-macosx -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dSAFER -dCompatibilityLevel=1.5 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sstdout=%stderr -dGrayImageResolution=600 -dMonoImageResolution=1200 -dColorImageResolution=300 -sOutputFile=vol_iv_gs.pdf -c .setpdfwrite -f vol_iv.pdf
On a linux PC, this works simply well :
gs -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dSAFER -dCompatibilityLevel=1.5 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sstdout=%stderr -dGrayImageResolution=600 -dMonoImageResolution=1200 -dColorImageResolution=300 -sOutputFile=vol_iv_gs.pdf -c .setpdfwrite -f vol_iv.pdf
or more simply, for press :
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=newfile.pdf myfile.pdf
and for screen viewing :
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=newfile.pdf myfile.pdf
Adding the "-c .setpdfwrite" option is probably usefull (see http://ghostscript.com/doc/current/Language.htm#.setpdfwrite and http://ghostscript.com/doc/current/Ps2pdf.htm#Limitations) :
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=newfile.pdf -c .setpdfwrite -f myfile.pdf
Similar on a Windows PC :
gswin32 -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -dSAFER -dCompatibilityLevel=1.5 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sstdout=%stderr -dGrayImageResolution=600 -dMonoImageResolution=1200 -dColorImageResolution=300 -sOutputFile=vol_iv_gs.pdf -c .setpdfwrite -f vol_iv.pdf
Put the command line in a batch file in the same folder as the Scribus generated PDF, and the batch will create the new file via double click.
Using a Python Script
A linux only program.
Note: Not all PDFs can be reduced, sometimes they are even larger!
Script creates a back up of the original (filename.pdf.orig) as well as the new file (filename.new.pdf) and you require pdftops and ps2pdf14. A 5MB file may take about 20 seconds, a 100 MB file may take minutes.
#! /usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import sys
import os
import shutil #
'''
This program is Linux only.
Requires pdftops and ps2pdf14
'''
failure = "failure"
filesTo_find = ['pdftops','ps2pdf14']
errorMessage_1 = 'This program requires both pdftops and ps2pdf14.\nOne or both is missing. Please install to allow this program to function'
errorMessage_2 = 'This program does not yet operate on windows.\nFeel free to modify it run on a win32 system'
errorMessage_3 = 'This program does not yet operate on OS2.\nFeel free to modify it run on an OS2 system'
errorMessage_4 = 'You do not have permission to write in this directory.\nCopy the pdf to a writable directory and try again.'
found = 0
try:
import scribus
except ImportError,err:
print "This Python script is written for the Scribus scripting interface."
print "It can only be run from within Scribus."
sys.exit(1)
if sys.platform != 'win32':
pass
else:
result = scribus.messageBox('Sorry - Linux Only program', errorMessage_2,)
sys.exit()
if sys.platform != 'os2':
pass
else:
result = scribus.messageBox('Sorry - Linux Only program', errorMessage_3,)
sys.exit()
path = os.environ['PATH']
paths = path.split(os.pathsep)
for ftf in filesTo_find:
for p in paths:
f = p + '/' + ftf
if os.path.isfile(f):
found = found + 1 #need to start search for next file when first file found
break
if found == 2:
pass
else:
result = scribus.messageBox('Missing Programs', errorMessage_1,)
sys.exit()
homedir = os.path.expanduser("~")
os.chdir(homedir)
filename=scribus.fileDialog("Reduce PDF", "PDF files(*.PDF *.pdf)")
if os.path.isfile(filename):
orig_size = os.path.getsize(filename)
cmd = 'pdftops' + ' ' + filename
os.system(cmd)
if os.path.exists(filename[:-3] + 'ps'):
cmd2 = 'ps2pdf14' + ' ' + filename[:-3] + 'ps' + ' ' + filename[:-3] + 'new' + '.pdf'
os.system(cmd2)
new_size = os.path.getsize(filename[:-3] + 'new' + '.pdf')
else:
result = scribus.messageBox('Big Boo Boo', 'Something real bad has gone wrong! Sorry',)
sys.exit(1)
pdf_file = os.path.basename(filename)
result = scribus.messageBox(pdf_file,"Original size was" + ' ' + str(orig_size) + ' ' + "bytes" + '\n' + "New size is" + ' ' + str(new_size) + ' ' + "bytes"'\n' )