Idea Delivered Partially

The ability to apply image compression was added with XPP 9.6 which should alleviate the request to use GS for compression purposes. Direct to PDF already has the ability to set the PDF version.

Direct PDF - add GhostScript post processing step

The new Direct PDF option is great.
It allows you to create UA pdfs, create bookmarks in a much simpler way, bypasses the sometimes gigantic PS files and it is quick.
However is does have a downside as well. 
You have no control over the created PDF.
You can not set the PDF level (it creates PDF 1.7 files) and you can not set the compression level (it can create gigantic files as it simply copies the graphics as found in your library).

Now to overcome this problem I have integrated a GhostScript post processing step in which I can define both the PDF level and the compression level (screen, print, prepress, default) of the final PDF.

It would be nice if XPP could integrate that postprocessing step as an option to the Direct PDF print command.
This could be done by some extra fields in the PDF tab (level: 1.3. 1.4 ... 1.7 - compression: screen, print, prepress, default) 
The GhostScript postprocessing step only needs to be run when the user selects 1 of these extra fields.

Since GhostScirpt is already part of the standard delivery, no extra software is needed.
And like this the user gets a lot more control over what kind of PDF is produced (without having to revert back to distiller or ghostscript)

It could also be an easy solution to another outstanding idea 
see : https://community.sdl.com/ideas/contenta-ideas/i/ideas-xpp/direct-to-pdf-to-meet-final-output-requirement-we-need-to-be-able-to-select-what-type-of-pdf-will-be-created-pdfa-pdfx
As apparently you can use Ghostscript to convert a PDF into a PDF/A or a PDF/X 

Bart Terryn

  • The status is correct, we have partially delivered as described in previous comments and in the release notes where we identify how we've added capabilities to address some of these items. As part of our current theme of Direct to PDF enhancements, we are now researching how we might optimize the file size. We have agreed though that it is not appropriate to use GhostScript as a post-process for this as suggested here as it is known that some types of content are not carried through and therefore will not be present in the final PDF output. We will keep this group posted.

  • in reply to Bart Terryn

    Thanks Bart, Jen and I are a little behind on our reviews of the ideas page. We will definitely be reviewing soon. Its nice to hear the compression is "great". I'm going to quote you on that.

  • I think that with V9.6 this idea has been partially (if not fully) delivered.
    (the compression works great)

    So this idea might be marked accordingly!

  • A post-process to a direct to PDF is not something that we are really interest in.

    However, with 9.5 we will:

    add the ability to set the version number 1.4,1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.7ext3, 1.7ext8, and 2.0 through the GUI (although you can currently do this with an override command argument).

    Add an option to set a compression level (0=none to 9=highest) through the GUI and command line interface. This is a new feature with the PDFlib 9.3 package that we start using in XPP 9.5. There is not much information other than to say that it compresses duplicate objects. However, it does state that it will not compress "pass-through" images, so things like PDF and SVG will go through as is.

  • in reply to Bart Terryn

    I'm not disagreeing with your request, but have you taken fonts into account for the files sizes? The postscript driver will not embed fonts unless you go through the set up phase with the '-efd' option. The PDF driver "divpdf" will download all fonts by default. This can be disabled with the '-noembed' option. As for images, divpdf does do a 'passthrough' on TIFF and SVG images.