What is the preferred maximum target file size for PDFs that will be accessed online by average users? I am converting a large catalog (originally done in Quark with many .tif photos per page, Mac OS) into PDF. -- Julia

Try using the preset Online and E-mail settings in distiller and see what kind of file size you get. If the file size is more than 30% of the original Quark file size, adjust the down-sampling of images to a lower resolution. If you're not concerned about the fonts printing exactly as source, you can uncheck the embedding and subsetting of fonts. This may cause problems distilling though. P.S.: Don't use Save as PDF in OSX as there are no controls for file size. –Edward Becker

The relatively standard resolution for most Web images is 72 dpi. If your images aren't of decent size, then they could be very pixelated at that rez. Try 150 dpi to start and if possible, break the one file into smaller files or chapters by extracting the pages (check the box: delete pages after extracting) and saving the extracted pages as another file. It's easy to create a ToC from Word or Quark and link to the separated files or create bookmarks to link the files together. You can optimize the files with distiller or PDF Optimizer in 6.0 to reduce the dpi of the images to the desired and optimum resolution of 150 or 72 dpi, if possible. -- James Miller

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