[OS X TeX] Compressing pdf graphics

[Chabot Denis]

Hi,

Recently I posted a question to the R mailing list because pdf plots  
I make with it can be larger than png files when a lot of objects are  
plotted (but offer much better quality, of course, in particular for  
zooming in on details).

What prompted my question was the fact that Acrobat can shrink these  
graphics (or my LaTeX documents that contain lots of them) quite a  
bit, and I was hoping there was a compression option I did not know  
about.

I'm including a reply I received because it suggests this compression  
can be done within LaTeX.

Do you know how to do this?

Thanks in advance,

Denis
p.s. my 22 MB pdf report can be shrunk to 6.9 MB with Acrobat!

Début du message réexpédié :

> De : Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk>
> Date : 22 mai 2007 12:47:18 HAE
> À : Chabot Denis <chabotd at globetrotter.net>
> Cc : r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Objet : Rép : [R] Reducing the size of pdf graphics files produced  
> with R
>
>> From the help page
>
>      'pdf' writes uncompressed PDF.  It is primarily intended for
>      producing PDF graphics for inclusion in other documents, and
>      PDF-includers such as 'pdftex' are usually able to handle
>      compression.
>
> If you are able to contribute a stream compressor, R will produce  
> smaller plots.  Otherwise it is unlikely to happen (and it any case  
> would be a
> smaller contribution than that of the author of pdf(), who is quite  
> happy with external compressors).
>
> Acrobat does other things (not all of which it tells you about),  
> but compression is the main advantage.
>
> On Tue, 22 May 2007, Chabot Denis wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Without trying to print 1000000 points (see <http://
>> finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/Rhelp02a/archive/42105.html>), I often print
>> maps for which I do not want to loose too much of coastline detail,
>> and/or plots with 1000-5000 points (yes, some are on top of each
>> other, but using transparency (i.e. rgb colors with alpha
>> information) this actually comes through as useful information.
>>
>> But the files are large (not as large as in the thread above of
>> course, 800 KB to about 2 MB), especially when included in a LaTeX
>> document by the dozen.
>>
>> Acrobat (not the reader, the full program) has an option "reduce file
>> size". I don't know what it does, but it shrinks most of my plots to
>> about 30% or original size, and I cannot detect any loss of detail
>> even when zooming several times. But it is a pain to do this with
>> Acrobat when you generate many plots... And you need to buy Acrobat.
>>
>> Is this something the pdf device could do in a future version? I
>> tried the "million points" example from the thread above and the 55
>> MB file was reduced to 6.9 MB, an even better shrinking I see on my
>> usual plots.
>>
>>
>> Denis Chabot
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting- 
>> guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>
>
> -- 
> Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
> Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
> University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
> 1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595


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